We've made the case for why the Sixers are worthy of optimism heading into the 2024-25 season. Now, we must make the case for pessimism about the team as presently constructed.
Here are five reasons you should be bearish on the 2024-25 Sixers.
The lead photo says it all, right?
Joel Embiid will turn 31 this season. The last time he donned a Sixers uniform, he was compromised, trying his best to stay agile in spite of the bulky brace supporting his left knee.
A few months later, the Sixers star was still wearing a brace on the left knee on his way to an Olympic gold medal with Team USA.
Logically, it's valid to be concerned about how his knee has recovered from the procedure to address a lateral meniscus injury in the middle of last season. There were a number of hold-your-breath moments following his return. While it was the best playoffs of his career to date, Embiid was clearly operating on a bad wheel.
Nothing we've seen since then should dispel concerns about the knee. Especially as he ages into his 30s. Especially as he continues to put wear and tear on that left knee, which he's injured before.
And that's just the left knee. There's the rest of his body to worry about, as well.
New co-star Paul George doesn't have the cleanest history of health, either. George will turn 35 late in his first season with Philadelphia. He did play in more than 70 regular-season games last season. But, he played in less than 60 in each of the previous two campaigns.
You have to wonder whether last season was an outlier as George ages further from his prime.
Beyond the obvious talent advantage, the point of having a big three is that the other two should be able to keep the ship afloat if one goes down for any period of time.
Building a big three on two pieces with the injury histories of Embiid and George is concerning.
I believe every player on this team is physically capable of passing the ball. It may be ugly at times; it may go to the wrong team; it may go over the target's head and out of bounds; it may be timed poorly; it might miss the shooting pocket and force the target to reset or pass to someone else.
But, I do believe they can all pass the ball. Hooray!
I don't believe there's enough playmaking depth on this roster.
As things stand, 38-year-old Kyle Lowry is probably the best passer on the team. Embiid commands the most attention and has made strides as a passer, but he's still not a great decision-maker. Tyrese Maxey creates the most rim pressure and shifts defenses like no one else on the team, but his best reads are either one pass away or programmed pick-and-roll looks with Embiid. One of George's flaws is his passing and playmaking.
By assist numbers, Kelly Oubre Jr, Caleb Martin, and Eric Gordon are essentially non-passers.
There's a difference between passing and playmaking. Passing is the ability to deliver the ball to a teammate in a timely and accurate fashion. Playmaking involves passing but doesn't have to revolve around it. Playmakers create opportunities for teammates by leveraging their own strengths. They adapt themselves to the game, changing their minds and toggling through decisions in real time. They can attack with the intention to pass and end up scoring, and they can drive with the intention of scoring and end up flinging the ball across the court to an open shooter.
They don't have to be great at any one skill. They just have to be able to do some of everything at any moment, making difficult decisions on the move.
The player who most possesses the ability to do that on this team might be Ricky Council IV.
It's great that Council has the Bruce Brown gene. Unless they're willing to bump his opportunity significantly in year two, it's not so great for the Sixers that he's the one with the best combination of athleticism and feel for the game.
Philadelphia has a number of players who can catch and attack closeouts. The Sixers do not have a surplus of players who can create and execute on advantages - for themselves and for others.
I actually think there's more off-the-dribble shooting equity amongst the supporting cast than they're perhaps given credit for having. But, that doesn't mean everyone can consistently self-provision shots. That is especially the case when the job is to play around a big three.
The majority of threes for the likes of Oubre, Martin, Gordon, and Guerschon Yabusele will come off the catch. They'll be spacing the floor around Embiid, George, Maxey, and two-player combinations of the three. Without the means to create your own feel for the ball, your task is to get a grip and shoot as quickly as possible as the space between you and your defender diminishes.
That leaves little time for errant passes by the ankles, above the head, or outside the shoulder on the guide arm.
If there's limited margin for error on passes intended to punish defenders for leaving home position, then any concern involving playmaking or passing must lead to a concern about whether bad passes will actually cause negative regression in shooting from role players.
In other words, will the Sixers' presumed shortage in playmaking cause misses on three-point shots?
Perhaps you're thinking that a concern about the third-string center is a reach.
I invite you to review history, especially that within the last year.
Embiid missed 29 consecutive games with his meniscus injury. He missed a total of 43. Philadelphia spent more than half the season rolling the dice with Paul Reed and Mo Bamba manning the five.
They were stylistically different centers, but they didn't exactly complement each other. It was a pick-your-poison situation. The talent loss wasn't the only reason the Sixers imploded while Embiid was out. They didn't have the rebounding prowess or defensive band aids to hold teams off.
Now, they head into the season with Andre Drummond and Adem Bona as their only formidable backup bigs.
Drummond is a drop coverage big who is not adept at guarding in space. What do you do when teams switch-hunt him in the playoffs or insert a small-ball big to lure him away from the rim? Do you trust Bona to not commit four fouls in three minutes or make other mistakes?
Are you really going to waltz Yabusele out there to be the small-ball big?
And those are just questions about the non-Embiid minutes, not even accounting for the games that Embiid misses. What happens if Drummond picks up three or four fouls in the first half? Who's eating the rest of those minutes?
In Philadelphia's case, the third big man is perhaps as important as the second. Do they have anything they can confidently trot out as a third big right now?
The Sixers are selling themselves and their fans on a new big three. They ran the table in the offseason, flexing their muscles while most of the rest of the NBA dodged the newly-imposed second apron. Of course there's excitement.
But, the scars of disappointment run deep, and they never go away.
George has had some incredible playoff series; ask the Miami Heatles about their battles with the Indiana Pacers or the Phoenix Suns about their series with the Kawhi Leonard-less Los Angeles Clippers in the 2021 Western Conference Finals.
He's also had some absolute stinkers when the lights were the brightest, earning the nickname "Wayoff P" from a bricked a corner three off the side of the backboard as the Clippers choked away a 3-1 series lead over the Denver Nuggets in the 2020 bubble.
Of course, when you have more than 100 games of playoff experience, you're going to have some bad days at work. It's inevitable in this business.
Embiid is coming off his best playoffs ever. But, his playoff warts are high profile.
The decision-making is jarring. The signature shots that fall all season start to ping off the rim. He plays to the whistle, not through it.
He's had 0-for halves when his team had a chance to go up 3-1 in a series. He's committed eight turnovers in a Game 7.
Of course, Embiid insists his playoff woes are tied to his history of untimely injuries.
I'm not one to cast blame for bad shooting nights. They're random. But, some players don't have the rampage gene. They fail to deliver iconic kill shots over and over again. And when the series mandates a specific game for them to play to their respective regular-season standards, they simply cannot reach those levels.
Embiid has not proven that he possesses that gene. George's comes and goes.
Until they do it when the stakes are the greatest, it might not matter how good the roster around them is. Embiid and George still have time to write the fairytale endings to their stories. But, the previous chapters are in pen. The Sixers can change the roster as much as they want. As long as Embiid and George are two of the three heads of the snake, there will be skepticism come playoff time.
