Can the wheels fall off of a car before it actually starts moving?
An interesting case study is the 2024-25 Sixers, who are now 2-11 after experiencing a humiliating collapse in Miami on Monday night.
It would be much easier to list the things going well for the Sixers than recounting all of their issues. There is no "restart" button for this team, which must face its horrid record head-on and do something to fix it. The reality: this nightmarish beginning to a season which the organization entered with so much optimism has been the result of nearly every downside of its approach to team-building.
The Sixers were lauded, nearly universally, for an offseason in which President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey dramatically reshaped his team's roster. Nearly every one of the team's critical internal free agents was sent packing, and stepping in their places were nine-time All-Star Paul George, battle-tested wing Caleb Martin and historic rebounder Andre Drummond, among a slew of external free agent signings.
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NBA teams are navigating a brand new salary cap environment, and it is one that has discouraged the three-star model of roster construction that had become common among championship contenders. As he has done for much of his 17-year run as a lead shot-caller in the NBA, Morey decided to go against the grain. A decision-maker known for his endless desire to add star-caliber talent to any team went all-in on assembling a trio of All-Stars. And he did exactly that, landing George alongside former NBA MVP Joel Embiid and an ascending star in Tyrese Maxey.
In this new era of salary cap aprons and extreme limitations on teams with star-laden rosters, though, any team with more than two players making max or near-max money is not just betting on its best players being capable of leading it to a championship. Embracing this style of team-building is also a gamble on a front office's ability to accumulate enough depth to supplement its most talented players despite extremely limited means to actually do so.
The NBA's 2024-25 salary cap — a "soft cap," meaning there are mechanisms for teams to spend more than that figure — is about $140 million. Any team aiming to put together a "Big 3" must be ready to spend in the ballpark of that exact total just to put together such a trio (Embiid, George and Maxey make a hair over $135 million combined).
If a team is going to embark on this journey and zig while their competitors zag, their depth will almost certainly be subpar. They better be sure, then, that their stars are reliable enough to stay healthy and good enough to carry the load.
Perhaps Embiid, George and Maxey have enough talent to lead a team to the summit. But it will be an uphill battle which starts with getting on the floor all at once and changing their team's awful course — a path that has taken such a brutal turn because those three have not suited up for a single game together, and each one has missed extended stretches of action.
Of a possible 33 combined appearances that the star trio could have made to date, Embiid, George and Maxey have played in 17 total games. With an optimized playoff roster in mind, Morey's front office assembled a supporting cast filled with role players who are built to surround multiple star-caliber talents. However, those players have largely only been able to play behind one star at a time, and the results have been terrible: each and every member of the Sixers' supporting cast has been asked to do far more than they ever should be asked to do, and they have all noticeably underperformed relative to expectations.
Martin is being asked to take an enormous amount of shots a game for someone without on-ball juice or sound jump-shooting mechanics. Kelly Oubre Jr. has failed to be efficient in the scaling of his offensive workload up. Kyle Lowry and Eric Gordon look too old and slow to be rotation regulars at their ages. Drummond is posting career-worst numbers through a dozen appearances.
Kyle Lowry has averaged 25 minutes per game over his last seven games. He has started in six of those contests.
During this span, Lowry has made six total shots.— Adam Aaronson (@SixersAdam) November 19, 2024
Sixers head coach Nick Nurse — who took more than an hour to conduct his mandatory postgame press conference following the loss in Miami before saying the team had held a "little meeting," which he declined to provide any details of — has failed to find any avenues to help those players impact winning. There have been some head-scratching decisions along the way, even despite acknowledging the harsh reality of what Nurse has to work with.
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As a result, the margin for error for the Sixers' stars is razor thin.
Under circumstances that were already tremendously difficult, Embiid and George have now been asked to revive a season as they try to work their way back into midseason form — after Maxey failed to keep the team afloat when taking three more shots per game than any other NBA player as he operated by his lonesome. When George made his season debut, Maxey suffered a multi-week hamstring injury.
That is, of course, not to absolve Embiid, George and Maxey of blame. They can be much better than they have been, and they must be better moving forward. Maxey was one of the least efficient high-volume shot-takers in the NBA before going down, George has only had a few strong scoring showings and continues to turn the ball over at alarming rates.
And then there is Embiid.
Embiid, 30, signed a three-year contract extension worth $193 million over the summer. That deal does not kick in until after next season. Embiid is under contract for five seasons and nearly $300 million. Here we are wondering if the player who won his MVP trophy in 2022-23 — only to play at an even higher level last season before suffering a meniscus injury in the left knee which kept him out of the first nine games of this season — will ever be the same again.
The sample size — only three games — is miniature. Nobody can deny, though, that Embiid looks far less impressive, imposing and intimidating. Fatigue has kicked in to a noticeable degree in each of Embiid's appearances this season. His movement abilities have appeared extremely diminished so far. Typically an automatic bet to score whenever an opposing defense chose to cover him one-on-one, Embiid repeatedly declined to attack against single coverage in Miami.
Embiid's scoring aggression was not in the same stratosphere as its usual level. It resulted in something happening that had not occurred in nearly seven years:
Joel Embiid: 31 minutes, no free throw attempts. It has been nearly seven years since he has gone an entire game without stepping to the free throw line. https://t.co/UD5vjzfECc
— Adam Aaronson (@SixersAdam) November 19, 2024
No subplot during this Sixers season — not even the meteoric rise of rookie guard Jared McCain, who posted his sixth straight game with three triples in Miami, also marking his fifth consecutive 20-point performance, and looks like a star in the making — will be more pivotal than whether or not Embiid finds his normal self.
The Sixers can get healthy and become whole, have their new-look crew of players finally figure out how to coexist with one another and turn into a quality team. But plenty of Embiid-led Sixers teams have won loads of regular season games. Embiid and every other member of the Sixers organization has made it clear that winning a championship is the only goal at hand here.
Embiid getting right is not the only thing that needs to happen for the Sixers to reach the mountaintop. But without it, this all will have been for naught.
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