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It’s Hard Not to Feel Like the Sixers Punted on the Season at the Trade Deadline
By Sean Barnard
Published:
For the past decade, the Sixers have lived under the bright lights and pressure of being viewed as a contender. They have consistently been discussed as a top-eight team in basketball through an NBA lens. Through the lens of a Philadelphia fan base, they slid into the outlook of “Wake me up when the playoffs start,” and “I only care if they get past the second round.”
Last season’s disaster refreshed the timeline on this, as the team bottomed out and finished 24-58, the sixth-worst record in the league.
This season was a complete mystery coming in. If everything broke correctly, this Sixers team would fall right back in the contending category they have been trying so hard to climb to the top of for several years. There was also a world where the concerns that popped up last year were a sign of things to come, and the Sixers would face an ugly reality. Joel Embiid played a career-low 19 games last year and looked like a shell of himself most of the time he was on the floor. Paul George did not look close to the max contract expectations his salary commanded. Nick Nurse threw his hands up and more or less quit halfway through the season, showing clear frustration for having no knowledge of when his best players would be available and not be.
Fast forward to this season, and things have been night-and-day different. They head into the All-Star break with a 30-24 record and sit in sixth place in the Eastern Conference. While he missed the final two games before the break due to knee soreness, Embiid had suited up for 18 of his past 22 and has played 31 total. The former MVP is posting averages of 26.6 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 3.9 assists per game. Over his past 22, he’s averaging 30 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 4.3 assists. Across his past 10, he’s averaging 33.1 points, 8.6 rebounds, and 5.3 assists. Beyond just the growth in his stat output, Embiid’s movement has been night and day different than how he looked at the start of the year.
Outside of the two-time scoring champion, Tyrese Maxey has taken another leap in his development this year. He has blown past even the most optimistic projections when he came into the league and has been a Top-10 player in the league from start to finish this year. Third overall pick VJ Edgecombe has been as NBA-ready as a rookie can be, and has been the perfect backcourt mate to Embiid from a style of play perspective. Even Paul George had found his role on this Sixers team before he caught a 25-game suspension for a failed drug test.
Several times this season, I have sat back and thought how the Sixers act at the trade deadline will tell us how they really feel about this team. Well, the deadline has come and gone, and the only moves that were made were trading away Jared McCain for a collection of mediocre future draft picks and salary dumping Eric Gordon, who was hardly in the rotation anyway.
Sure, Morey can claim the McCain deal was made with the intention of a corresponding win-now move to help the team. But it’s a results-based world we live in, and no deal went down. There were a record-setting 73 players traded at the deadline, with 28 trades being made across the league. But Morey largely stood on the sideline and failed to net a player that could aid this team.
In a year where every checkmark you were looking for has been hit, the vibes are about as great as they ever have been, and Embiid was publicly calling for the front office not to only prioritize ducking the luxury tax- the Sixers did exactly this.
Morey is largely correct that if you believed in the team before, you still should. Jared McCain was never going to make or break the outlook for this specific season. But you certainly cannot make the case that the Sixers went all-in to give this team its best chance. The East is wide open, and the Sixers did not bring in a single player that could help the team win. They just gave one away.
The Sixers will head to the All-Star break with 13 players on standard contracts. One of these was the recently upgraded Dominick Barlow, who has served as the team’s primary power forward and played on a two-way contract for as long as the Sixers could allow him to under the NBA restrictions. They will now attempt to find two bottom-of-the-roster players to cap off this roster through the buyout market. In the wider scale, the Sixers have done well, winning within these margins and finding some diamonds in the rough. Getting Barlow on a two-way contract to start the season is absolutely an example of this, and the recent two-way addition of Dalen Terry also deserves praise.
But the likelihood of any buyout market player or two-way contract player being any sort of needle-mover from a postseason perspective is slim to none. The Sixers had more than half a season to evaluate what they were still missing, and elected not to chase these answers. The rebounding, three-point shooting, perimeter defense, and backup big man issues still exist, but the pathway to solving them is essentially closed.
The Sixers can publicly state that they believe they have everything they need and are satisfied with this group. But the actions seem to indicate that this is not a season where it’s worth pushing more chips in the middle. The Eastern Conference remains wide open, and plenty can still happen in the second half of the year. But the Sixers may have revealed their hand a bit more than they are trying to let on.
Sean Barnard has covered the Philadelphia 76ers and general Philly Sports for over six years in a variety of roles and for multiple outlets. Currently works as a Content Writer for DraftKings Network, Sixers/NBA Insider for Philadelphia's Fox Sports the Gambler, and co-host of Sixers & Phillies Digest on Youtube. Forever Trusting the Process.