As a great philosopher named Hawkeye once said: "Don't do that. Don't give me hope."
The Philadelphia 76ers are giving me hope, damn it. It's deeply frustrating. Gone are my days of blissful disregard. I was so ready to emotionally check out. To accept the inevitable demise of this team with the grace of a beaten-down man who knows his fate. A man who knows nothing truly good can come of this cursed world.
And yet, with the regular season right around the corner, the vibes around the Sixers are ... dare I say it ... positive? There is a genuine feeling of hope flowing from the practice facility in Camden these days. Perhaps we are all getting a little too drunk on PR videos from the Sixers social media team. We definitely shouldn't ignore months of negative reporting around Joel Embiid's health and the discord it caused.
But with Embiid slated to appear in the Sixers' final preseason game, it seems like the former MVP will be on the floor to begin the new campaign. Paul George won't be ready for the season opener, but he's cooking Tyrese Maxey in 1-on-1s, and he's participating in practices. His return is imminent. Jared McCain needs a few weeks more, but he's young. He ought to push through it eventually. (Right? Right???)
The Sixers are dangerously close to beginning the season (relatively) healthy, with a roster that is unmatched in the East in terms of overall talent. You can critique depth, continuity, coaching, injury concerns. But stack the Sixers' roster against any roster in the Eastern Conference, and Philadelphia comes out on top. On paper. Which famously matters almost not at all with this team. But hey! Talent is talent! Anything is possible.
So, are we back? Is this thing happening?
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Sixers are in a much better place than anyone could've imagined
It feels like the Sixers are embracing a long-overdue culture change. Tyrese Maxey has fully stepped up as the leader in the locker room. Joel Embiid was never a natural-born leader; he's quiet and reserved, with deep-seated trust issues. James Harden certainly wasn't a rah-rah galvanizer. Before him, Ben Simmons was laid back to a fault. Jimmy Butler brought a bit of fire and accountability to the locker room for half a season, but the Sixers let him walk to appease Brett Brown and Ben Simmons (... sigh). In Maxey, the Sixers finally have an All-Star who plays his tail off, puts max effort into personal improvement and is willing to take the proverbial bull by the horns and lead. Actually lead.
The Sixers are changing up their offense. Nick Nurse has long preferred to let his stars cook in isolation, with everything stemming from the gravity his stars generate. It worked with Kawhi Leonad in Toronto. It worked when Joel Embiid was an unstoppable, MVP-caliber scorer. But last season, with Embiid hobbled or hurt, the Sixers' offense was utterly stagnant. There was no motion. No ball-sharing, no effort to manufacture advantages. Watching the Sixers was like watching someone run into a brick wall time and time again for 48 minutes every night.
Nurse said the new offense features "more passing, more spacing, more guys handling," which he also called "a departure away from the way [Embiid] plays," per Liberty Ballers. The goal is simple: to create a more egalitarian offense that doesn't require Embiid (or Maxey or George) to carry the Sixers on his back every night. Philly needs to limit Embiid's wear and tear, the demand on his body. Philadelphia also needs to be able to score when Embiid's not available. The offense needs to work independent of its stars, but in a way that the stars can elevate. That is the ultimate goal.
This comes hand-in-hand with a culture change. It's hard to bring up the vibes in the locker room when guys are hurt. It's even harder who none of your role players are bought-in and the offense feels futile.
The Sixers are evolving in a necessary way. Don't believe me? Yaron Weitzman laid it out succinctly at The Ringer:
"There’s all sorts of talk about new and improved 'standards' and 'culture,'" he writes. "President of basketball operations Daryl Morey is touting the roster’s youth and a revamped medical group. Head coach Nick Nurse is raving about the energy he’s seeing in the gym."
Philadelphia is playing faster, freer and more selflessly. The Sixers are also practicing harder. A "revamped medical staff" might be the most encouraging update of all. Philly's medical staff has been a national laughing stock, bordering on outright malpractice, for years. It's about time that the Sixers, you know, take care of their players and competently tackle medical issues. Lord knows if any team needs competence in the medical staff, it's this one.
Weitzman also mentions teammates "gushing over" the athleticism of VJ Edgecombe, the No. 3 overall pick. And while it's uncommon for rookies to contribute significantly to a contender, Edgecombe is a bit of a unicorn. He's the third overall pick joining a team with immediate title hopes. That almost never happens. Edgecombe is also just a phenomenal human, a natural-born leader and notorious hard worker who feels like the perfect understudy to Maxey as the Sixers' youth movement takes root.
The Sixers are looking to their young guns to bring the energy up, both in the locker room and on the court. Edgecombe, Maxey, McCain — all three members of Philadelphia's 26-and-under backcourt brigade — are imminently coachable, effervescently positive in their demeanor and, above all else, damn good at basketball. There are well-documented concerns about how all three fit together on the court, but almost more important is how their personalities gel, and how that spreads to the rest of the locker room.
As soon as Edgecombe was drafted, he and McCain were attached at the hip throughout Summer League. At media day, Maxey revealed that he worked out with Edgecombe in the offseason and took him to Disneyland. That sort of extracurricular bonding has been all too absent from recent Sixers offseasons. This team has been too disconnected, too focused on the individual rather than the collective. The young guys are trying to change that. You what what they said: The kids might save us. It's true with the Sixers as it is in life. Sometimes it takes fresh blood, a new generation, to right the sins of the past and move us forward.
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Are the Sixers finally back in championship contention?
The simple answer is, "we don't know." Another reasonable answer would be "probably not." Because for as wonderful as it is to see this new influx of positivity around the organization, it does not insure health. Embiid has worked his way back from injuries in the past, only to get hurt again in suboptimal moments. He's 7-foot-2, close to 300 pounds and on the wrong side of 30, with several lower-leg injuries and freak accidents on his ledger. There is simply no way to guarantee that he remains healthy enough for a deep postseason run. Same for George, whose own injury history is piling up at record speed.
But the Sixers absolutely have a chance, and the vibes around this team are higher than any fan thought possible a couple months ago. Embiid being ready in the preseason is a genuine shock after the thickly veiled mystery surrounding his knee all summer. George being this close to his return is a pleasant bit of news, too.
The Sixers are still waiting on McCain. Freak injuries and untold heartbreak almost certainly await; it's hard not to feel like this organization upset some dark, cosmic forces when Sam Hinkie got the boot. And yet, despite skepticism being the only logical outlook on the Sixers at this point, it's hard not to watch videos of Embiid smiling as he torches teammates in one-on-ones, of Maxey and Edgecombe doing TikTok dances at media day, and smile. Because for the first time in almost a year, there is a feeling other than misery shrouding the Sixers organization. It feels something like happiness. Togetherness.
Now, let's see how long these positive vibes actually last. Over/under one month?