Joel Embiid Is Not The Only Person to Blame For 76ers Start
Joel Embiid is under fire. He missed the start of the season. At first, because he was “ramping up” and then because he was suspended for shoving a reporter who for some reason thought it was appropriate to use Embiid’s dead brother to shame him in a column. The Sixers have played 11 games, and he has played in only 1 of them. The Sixers are currently 2-9, the 2nd worst record in the league.
Being frustrated by Embiid’s early absence is fair. The Sixers have made it worse by giving us so few answers. Being frustrated by him routinely battling injuries is fair. It is even fair to be a little upset about how he looked in his 1st game back, even though I am not sure how you expected a guy who hasn’t played 5-on-5 basketball in months to look.
But what I do not think is fair, is that all the heat right now for this slow start is being focused on him. Things would not be this bad if Tyrese Maxey, Nick Nurse, and the Sixers role players won more than just 2 games in his absence.
Sixers Still Can’t Win Without Joel Embiid
You can look at some of these games they played so far, and say that a loss was acceptable. They weren’t going to beat the Cavs without Embiid, George, or Maxey. The fact they were close is highly impressive. The Bucks have been bad in hindsight, but expecting the Sixers to win that game without Embiid or Paul George might be asking too much.
But 2-8 in games without Embiid is unacceptable. They played the Pistons in that stretch. They played an injury-ridden Raptors team in that stretch. You had both Maxey and George for the Clippers game. You couldn’t win any of those games? Maxey couldn’t put the team on his back against one of those beatable teams? Nick Nurse couldn’t couldn’t coach his team to more than 2 wins over this time?
This has been the tale the entire time Embiid has been in Philly. When he comes off the floor, the team can’t function. They are 90-124 without Embiid. Last year they were 16-27 without him, and 31-8 with him. That is the difference between having the best record in the league, and the 8th worst. Yet somehow people make it an Embiid problem, and not a rest of the team problem.
Maxey was not playing his best to open the season. He was scoring 27 points per game sure, but with a 40.6% Fg%, and a 28.6 rate from the 3-point range. The usually efficient Maxey was having a horrible time from the floor. His turnovers were up, and his assists were down. He was trying to bear the weight of being the main guy on the team, and it just wasn’t working.
That is not a shot at Maxey. Only a handful of players in the league can truly carry a team. But what we are seeing is that Embiid is one of those guys.
last year they went from averaging 109.1 pts per game without him (4th worst in the league) to 120.7 with him, 2nd best in the league.
We saw in the playoffs even if Embiid plays, they can’t function when he comes off the floor. They were +46 with him on the floor vs the Knicks, but they lost that series in 6 games. He had a positive +/- in 5 of the 6 games. They won his minutes by double digits in 3 of the 6 games. They lost 1 of those 3 games.
Now, even with a revamped roster, we are seeing more of the same. Most teams would be able to survive their star player missing 10 games. They might sneak by at .500, but it wouldn’t dig them into a hole like the Sixers did. Yet somehow this is all Embiid’s fault, and the coach or the players on the court bear no responsibility for it.
This Doesn’t Happen To Other Good Teams
Now you might be saying of course when you lose your best player you get worse. And yes, that is true. But not like this.
Take the Celtics for example. The team every other team should aspire to be right now. Jayson Tatum did not miss many games, but he did miss some last year. They went 7-1 when he was out. They went 12-0 when Jaylen Brown was out. The Bucks were a bit of a mess, but they still went 4-5 without Giannis.
The Heat went 13-9 without Jimmy Butler. Erik Spoelstra was able to coach his team to get by when his best player had to miss time. Why can’t Nurse? I am not expecting a winning record, but is .500 too much to ask? How much different would it feel now if they were 5-6? That would be good enough to be tied for 4th in the East right now.
But we don’t see fans or radio hosts freaking out about Tyrese Maxey underperforming. We don’t see people screaming about Nick Nurse. We don’t see people upset when Paul George misses the 2nd game of a back-to-back.
The anger is all focused on Embiid. The one guy in the organization who has proven he can lift the team to wins. And some of that anger might be justified. But for it all to be placed on him, while the other team fails to even be competitive without him most nights, seems unfair.
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A Cup of Coffee: 10 Philadelphia Sixers Players Better Known With Other Teams
Nikola Vucevic
Vucevic has had a nice career between the Magic and Bulls. But he started out as a rookie that Doug Collins refused to give too many minutes to. The next offseason after being drafted, he was part of the now infamous deal for Andrew Bynum. He went on to make two All-Star games. Bynum never played a minute for the Sixers.
Kwame Brown
One of the most famous NBA busts had a cup of coffee with the Sixers. The Warriors sent him to the Bucks as part of the Andrew Bogut trade. The Bucks cut him soon after though. He signed a 2-year deal with the Sixers, but played in only 22 games and was cut before the second season of his contract. He nearly had as many personal fouls (37) as he did points (41) while with the Sixers. It was the last chance in the NBA he ever got.
Glenn Robinson
The Sixers tried so hard to find the second scoring option behind Allen Iverson. One of the guys they tried, was Glenn Robinson. He was very good with the Bucks, usually averaging over 20 points per game. He was not bad with the Sixers, but he was not that same guy. He played just 42 games here and averaged 16 points per game. He was injured for his entire 2nd season here and then got traded.
JaVale McGee
McGee is perhaps best known for his frequent appearances on Shaqtin a Fool. Its gave him a bit of an unfair repuation. Did he make some bone headed plays in his career? Yes. But he was also a 3-time champion, an Olympic Gold Medalist, and a physical presence on defense.
His time with the Sixers was know memorable at all though. The Nuggets shipped him here, along with a first round pick, and the rights to Chukwudiebere Maduabum, as a pure salary dump. He played just 6 games here.
Toni Kucoc
Kucoc won 3 NBA Finals with the Bulls, was 6th Man of The Year in the 1995-1995 season, and won pretty much every award you can as a Basketball player when over in Europe. He was a significant piece of the Bulls second run of 3 straight championships. But he did not get much time with the Sixers.
He was decent in the 1999 -2000 season, averaging 12 points per game. But the next season he was part of the trade that landed the Sixers Dikembe Motumbo. In the end, he played in only 80 total games here, averaging a little over 8 points per game.
Dwight Howard
Obviously we don’t forget he played here. It is too recent. But he will be one of those guys where we look back one day and go “Oh yea, he did play here.”. Howard was probably one of the best backups for Embiid. He only lasted one year here. And like so many backup bigs before him, he disappeared in the playoff.
Chris Webber
Not sure if anyone forgets his time here, so maybe it doesn’t quite fit the brief. But Webber is a superstar, who had a disappointing cup of coffee in Philly. Webber was supposed to come here and finally be the guy to be AI’s Co-Star. It never quite worked out. He was injured for parts of his first season, had a decent first full season here, but then was benched in year 3.
