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Sixers’ Season Win Total Set at 52.5
By Joe Tansey
Published:
It’s July 18th and basketball is probably the last thing on your mind.
After all, there’s only one day left in the dreaded barren sports week when MLB is off.
However, the sportsbooks just released their win totals for the 2024-25 NBA season, so screw it, let’s take an early look at the Philadelphia 76ers.
The Sixers have the fourth-highest over/under at 52.5. The Boston Celtics, New York Knicks, and 76ers have three of the four highest projections. The Oklahoma City Thunder have the highest win total set from the Western Conference.
This only confirms what we all thought after free agency settled down. The Celtics, Knicks, and Sixers will be in a three-way race to win the Eastern Conference. The winner of that battle royale will end up in the NBA Finals against whomever emerges from the wide-open Western Conference.
Let’s focus in on the Sixers for this post.
They won 47 regular-season games last season and that was without Joel Embiid on the floor for a few months.
Embiid had the highest PER (player efficiency rating) in the entire NBA last season. He was three full points better than Nikola Jokic in second place. Embiid also had a 4.5 VORP (value over replacement player) for the 2023-24 campaign.
If you don’t like analytics that much, I’ll simplify it. Yeah no fucking shit the Sixers were worse without Embiid and they challenge for the No. 2 seed (the Knicks with 50 wins) if he’s in there the full season.
Assuming Embiid is 100 percent for all of next season (which is a big if and if you’re just a diehard Sixers fan only you can operate a hot take machine that he shouldn’t play at the Olympics if he wants to win the NBA Finals – I just became a WIP host with that sidebar), the Sixers should come close to winning 53 games.
Tyrese Maxey is a year better, Paul George has been added, and at least most importantly to me, there’s depth. The Sixers have a legit eight-man rotation before we know what kind of impact Jared McCain can make in his rookie season.
A Kyle Lowry/Eric Gordon/Andre Drummond-led bench unit is better than what the Sixers churned out on the court last season.
A deeper team means you can win close games and also feel more secure about winning when Embiid’s on-court time is being managed.
So yes, the depth is a huge plus to the Sixers’ hopes of winning a ton of games, but let’s be honest, so is the soft underbelly of the Eastern Conference.
Go ahead and name a team that will actually threaten the Celtics, Knicks, or Sixers in the regular season that isn’t the Milwaukee Bucks.
Orlando? Probably at least one more year away from being a serious contender, although they could rise quickly.
Cleveland? Is there enough around Donovan Mitchell? I don’t know.
Indiana? Fun, but coaching decisions were really bad in the games that mattered.
Miami? Sure, but the Heat are gonna scare the shit out of everybody on reputation only.
Atlanta and Chicago traded away stars in the offseason, Charlotte stinks, Toronto is rebuilding, Brooklyn is tanking and Detroit and Washington have been locked in the East basement for years and nothing is gonna change in a quick manner.
Almost half of the teams in the Eastern Conference won’t be relevant by Thanksgiving Day. That’s going to pad the win totals of not just the Sixers, but the Celtics and the Knicks as well. It’s also going to put more importance on the head-t0-head games with Boston and New York because of tiebreakers for the No. 1 overall seed.
All of this is a long-winded way to say, yes, the Sixers are more than capable of hitting their set win total at New Jersey sports betting apps and sportsbook apps in PA. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes up a number by the time the NBA regular season tips off.
Joe Tansey writes sports betting posts for Crossing Broad and also covers the Philadelphia Union for his Substack site, Union Soccer Blog.