Sixers

Philadelphia 76ers 2026 Postmortem

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: May 11th, 2026 · 10:07 AM EDT

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If you enter a time machine, go back to September, and ask Philadelphia sports fans about the Sixers, they probably would tell you to wake them up when the playoffs begin. Do not disturb their peaceful and ignorant basketball slumber.

There are exceptions, of course, with some hardcore basketball fans holding out hope that “things will be different” in 2025-2026, but most four-for-four types would likely explain that they were worn out on the team after eight seasons of trying and failing to get out of the 2nd playoff round in the Joel Embiid era.

And if you’re one of those people who believes that goalposts don’t move during a season itself, then this campaign was again a failure, because the Sixers were swept out of the 2nd round by a Knicks team that was basically playing a home game at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Mother’s Day.

It was a pitifully sad way for this team to go considering some of the high point moments they did give us. VJ Edgecombe had a fantastic rookie season, and would normally get a lot more press and a lot more attention if he was playing for a team on the come up. Tyrese Maxey went to his second All-Star Game while carrying a heavy load and putting up career highs in a lot of categories. Joel Embiid returned from late appendectomy surgery to help the Sixers beat the Celtics in the postseason for the first time since 1982, erasing a 3-1 series lead in the process.

But along the way, it was much of the same for the team and its fans. Embiid looked great through the middle portion of the season, then suffered an oblique strain that caused him to miss 13 games. He came back from the appendectomy for the Boston series, missed Game 2 of the Knicks series with hip and ankle issues, and ultimately played 7 of the team’s 11 playoff games and 38 of 82 regular season games. All told, this was probably better than expected, considering how the year prior turned out, but once again we witnessed a Sixers playoff “run” without a fully healthy Embiid.

Paul George had some nice moments here and there, and did reasonably well in the playoffs, but at this age he is not going to take over a game, and he’s occupying one of the Sixers’ max contract slots at 36 years old. He played 38 regular season games because of the inexcusable PED suspension and a veteran like PG should know what’s going into his body and be completely on top of that. If he had remained available during a time when Embiid and Maxey were both injured, that may have been the difference between the 5 or 6 seed and the play-in tournament.

Now, hitting on some other bulletpoints:

• Ownership: We’ve been less critical of Josh Harris and David Blitzer at Crossing Broad largely because we remember what Sixers ownership was like before they came along. It was nonexistent. Ed Snider may not have even known that he owned the Sixers, who now have a world class practice facility, a robust staff, trainers, chefs, dieticians, etc, all that shit. They have 99% of the requisite things that a professional franchise requires in 2026. The main shortcoming is this luxury tax ceiling, and the inarguable position that Harris cares more about the Commanders than the Sixers. This was never an issue when he also owned the Devils, because the Devils sucked and they weren’t taking resources away from the Sixers. But at this point you just want somebody in charge of the Sixers who really cares about the Sixers and wants the team to be priority #1, not just another property in a larger portfolio. Snider truly cared about his Flyers, and it’s been almost thirty years since the Sixers had an owner or managing partner who made basketball the top priority. I don’t think it’s out of the question to tell Josh Harris, “either make the Sixers your #1 thing or get the fuck out,” because you’d just be echoing the sentiment of the most passionate Sixers fans. John Middleton and Jeffrey Lurie he is not. And while there’s no smoking gun with any of these Jeffrey Epstein and Josh Harris links, it adds a pungent optics stink to the distaste that a lot of fans already feel.
• Say what you will about ducking the tax and the limitations of ownership, but the fact of the matter is that Daryl Morey did nothing to make the Sixers better at the deadline. He traded Jared McCain for picks, converted some two-way contracts, and picked up Cam Payne off the scrap heap before releasing him with a hamstring injury. The Sixers had little depth in the postseason because they essentially punted at the deadline, which was an inflection point for some fans to abandon the team entirely. Morey, in my mind, built two championship teams here, 2021 and 2023, and the players and coaches on those teams should have gotten themselves into the Eastern Conference Finals, at the very least, but the GM has now largely painted himself into a corner with these huge contracts for Embiid and George that are nearly impossible to get off of. His best Sixers work is now years in the past.
• Nick Nurse hasn’t had a ton to work with during his Sixers tenure. Guys are constantly in and out of the lineup with injuries or load management, and he doesn’t exactly have a deep bench to work with. But the Sixers run an NBA standard pick and roll offense when they aren’t playing Embiid’s isolation and face up game, and there’s never been any point over the past few years where I’ve felt like coaching has swung a game or even been an advantage for the Sixers. It just feels like Nurse is… there. He’s not a detriment, but I don’t know what advantage he’s providing either.
• Knicks fans taking over the building: This is a very overrated story. We’ve been over it a hundred times before. There is little juice for the Sixers because they have now failed every year during the Embiid era to get out of the 2nd round. The Knicks haven’t won a title since 1973 and are a great team with a real chance to win it all, so their fans come down here and buy the tickets that Sixers fans don’t want. It’s not a referendum on Philadelphia as a sports town, case in point: when the Sixers were good and the Knicks were shit, there were no fan takeovers.

So where do the Sixers go now? That’s always the postmortem question. What happens next?

Well, not much in terms of the cap sheet. Embiid’s three-year max extension begins next season, so he’s not going anywhere until 2029 unless he retires or they find a suitor, which doesn’t seem likely. PG has two more years of max money and Maxey three more, so they don’t have much wiggle room. Even if the Sixers fired Morey and promoted somebody like Bob Myers, that person’s hands are going to be tied. I can’t imagine many people are jumping at the chance to GM the Sixers.

The best case scenario may be that they break for the summer, get everyone healthy, and give it another go, but isn’t that what we’ve been doing for the last five or six seasons now? Waiting and hoping and crossing our fingers that maybe Joel Embiid will finally be healthy for a playoff run? And even then, so what? He’ll be 33 years old, Paul George will be pushing 37, and there’s no guarantee the rest of the roster will even be good enough to make the conference finals for the first time since Nintendo released the GameCube.

Keep in mind, the Sixers got in as a 7 seed this year, which meant they had to play a Game 7 on the road in Boston, empty the tank, and then essentially turn around and forfeit Game 1 in MSG 48 hours later. So it’s not good enough to just get in healthy and “see what happens.” Seeding matters, and if Embiid and PG can’t even play half of the regular season games, they’re looking at a repeat of what we just witnessed, where they run out of steam in the second round against a superior team playing with homecourt advantage.

The Sixers really are an exhausting and maddening team, and it’s probably a safe bet that most fans left one foot dangling off the bandwagon this season, if they even got on it in the first place. And while Negadelphia is not what we like to do at Crossing Broad, the bottom line is that the Sixers once again crashed out in pathetic fashion like the losers that they are, and therefore this goes down in the annals as a failed season (again).