Don’t let some Raul Neto minutes distract you from the fact that Tobias Harris and Al Horford, who were handed $289 million dollars worth of contracts this past summer, gave the Sixers absolutely nothing on Wednesday night and have totally failed to live up to expectations this year. 17 points on 18 combined shots while adding 13 rebounds and two assists ain’t gonna do it for a pair of guys who needed to be significant contributors in 2020, especially with Ben Simmons currently on the shelf.

Brett Brown has had an incredibly poor season and deserves blame for many things, but the bottom line is that Elton Brand and these highly-paid players have fallen miles short of expectations, just as much (or worse) than the head coach. That’s not a defense of Brown, who will be fired after the Sixers inevitably lose this series, but the point I’m trying to make is that it’s unfair to blame one person more than the others since the across-the-board performance has been absolutely wretched and unacceptable dating back to November.

For starters, Joel Embiid and Simmons are the same players they were last year and the year before. Sure, Ben’s defense continues to evolve and he improved marginally as a screener and roller, but he still won’t shoot the basketball. Embiid straight-up said that he was disappointed with the departures of Jimmy Butler and JJ Redick and appears to be on a perpetual rollercoaster of emotions. Josh Richardson was just okay, Shake Milton is still very young and raw, and the rest of the bench probably won’t be here in the very near future.

In the 11 years I’ve been blessed to cover Philadelphia sports, I have never seen the fans check out on a team as quickly and drastically as this Sixers squad. They gave up on this unit faster than Ryne Sandberg gave up on the Phillies. And the funny thing is that it feels like it was only yesterday that they were ripping off 16-straight wins en route to the playoffs, when every single quote coming out of Embiid’s mouth was comedic gold that got 10,000 pageviews on Crossing Broad. The Sixers were dynamic and exciting and now they’re totally reviled, from ownership all the way down to the very last guy on the bench. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say that this team is “unlikable,” which is incredibly damning coming from a fan base that typically loves the players and sees them as an extension of their family.

If the Process wasn’t over before, it’s over now, and this franchise is in serious trouble moving forward. You cannot bring back Brett Brown. It’s hard to justify bringing back Elton Brand, whose tenure has consisted of blowing through assets in a failed title run and then handing out a pair of albatross contracts (where is the Ancient Mariner when you need him?). There’s no evidence that Brand can work the margins in a situation with little cap space, after all the chips were previously pushed to the center of the table and forever lost.

In the coaching department, you’re going to have to bring in somebody else and try to get the Embiid and Simmons combination to work, because it would be premature to split those guys up until another person takes a crack at a square peg/round hole problem. It might never be a fit, and John Wooden reincarnate might struggle with this duo, but it would be a crime to trade one of your stars before at least giving it a shot.

The game itself isn’t even worth talking about. They couldn’t keep the Celtics in front of them. Pick and roll drop coverage was poor. Offensively it was labored and deferential. The sad fact is that there are no dogs on this team, no players with the “I hate to lose” mentality that defines basketball’s greatest. Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan found their way into the pantheon because they were straight-up competitors who worked their asses off and tried to perfect the craft. They had heart and desire.

Mike Singletary famously said “I want winners!” but if you combined this Sixers roster with his stinky 49ers team, he’d still come up empty.

It’s disappointing, because this franchise had a lot of potential when Sam Hinkie, for all of his flaws, left the team flush with assets and a superstar in Embiid. The regimes that followed missed on the Markelle Fultz pick, lost some mid-level trades (Mikal Bridges), and just pushed expectations when they really didn’t have to.

I think that’s the topic that people fail to elevate in importance, the fact that they went into “win now” mode just one full season removed from a 10-victory debacle. They really could have benefited from a transitional year like the one Memphis just played, where some young guys grind their way to maybe the 8th seed, or sniff the edge of the playoffs, but they’re playing free and loose and don’t have the expectations of a major sports city thrust entirely onto their shoulders. Simmons and Embiid were not ready, and the Sixers shrunk the time frame unnecessarily because patience ran out after a few years of Hinkie ball. A large portion of Sixers fans, mostly older, felt like you had to win immediately in order to justify the tank, which is like taking a wedding cake of pressure and baking two more layers, then adding a topper that depicts an angry fan dialing 610-623-0975.

The Sixers are heading for purgatory, whether they realize it or not. They’re going to have to fire the coach at the very minimum, which is a shame, because Brett Brown is a great dude who was very easy to cheer for over the years. He may have lost this team, but he’s not dumb, and I think he’d agree that it’s time to dissolve this relationship and move on.