LOS ANGELES — On Friday, Nov. 8, in a 116-106 defeat to the Los Angeles Lakers, Jared McCain was the best offensive player in a Philadelphia 76ers uniform.
The rookie guard out of Duke scored a team-high 18 points. He hit a team-high four 3-pointers. He took a team-high 17 shots and he played a career-high 31 minutes. Though the game was a blowout for much of the second half, none of these statistics were a product of garbage time. No, this production came in the flow of the game. For McCain individually, an LA-area native, with his parents in the crowd at Crypto.com Arena, Friday night certainly serves as a nice moment.
But for the 76ers, needing a rookie to be the best offensive player to have a chance at winning, even for a single game, encapsulates where the team currently sits.
If the 76ers go on to make the Eastern Conference finals or the NBA Finals or win a championship, the beginning of this season will be forgotten. And because this is an 82-game season, it’s a marathon. There is ample time to turn around a nightmarish start to a year filled with expectations.
But after eight games, even in a season that is guaranteed to last six more months, whatever has been able to go wrong for the Sixers has gone wrong: Joel Embiid’s altercation with a columnist, which resulted in a three-game, NBA-mandated suspension; star guard Tyrese Maxey pulled up lame in Wednesday night’s defeat to the Los Angeles Clippers, resulting in a hamstring strain that will keep him out a significant amount of time; and, going back to the preseason, Paul George’s knee bruise which kept him out for the first part of the year.
When Philadelphia executive Daryl Morey put this roster together, he did so knowing he wouldn’t have Embiid in the fold for 82 games, or even 70 games, or maybe even 60. This roster was built with the ability to win without Embiid in mind. It was built on depth and veterans who know how to play and who know how to keep the raft afloat with a part or two missing. It was built counting on Maxey and George to be available and still provide a star tandem on the nights without Embiid.
None of that has come to fruition. With Friday night’s loss to the Lakers, the Philadelphia 76ers are 1-7. They are tied with the Utah Jazz, a team that has no interest in winning this year, for the worst record in the NBA. They came to the Western Conference for three games. They lost all three. They look lost in large stretches on both sides of the floor.
“The ship hasn’t sunk,” George said. “We know that we have to remain positive. We know that big fella is coming back and he’s one of the best. We’re going to get Tyrese healthy and we’ll get him back. Then we can finally be a complete team and start to build, and then we can finally begin to find out who we are. We’re still positive. We’re going to show up and we’re going to have the intention of winning games. We need more attention to detail, but we just have to continue to remain positive.
The facts are disturbing. Since 2019, there have been 12 teams to start a season with a 1-7 record. One team — the New Orleans Pelicans — has recovered to make the playoffs. No team that’s started 1-7 has rebounded to win a championship. The Sixers may be an extraordinary case, because Embiid is one of the best players in the league. And when the roster is whole, it’s on the short list of being one of the league’s most talented rosters.
But the best ability is availability. And through eight games, the Sixers have yet to have a full squad. It’s made the trickle down effect of it lethal to their chances of winning games. Even with either Maxey or George available, Philly has had real issue scoring. Their typical pattern has been be competitive with toughness and athleticism through a portion of the game and then hitting a dry spell that lasts about 10 minutes and the opposition pulls away.
For example, let’s take this past week. The Sixers and LA Clippers entered halftime tied at 51. Philadelphia came with a 17-point third quarter while the Clippers, who put up 33 points, had no such trouble offensively. That was your ballgame. Friday night against the Lakers told much of the same story. The Sixers trailed by double digits early and then rallied to tie the game at 60-60 before the Lakers went on an 8-0 run to end the half. The third quarter yielded just 21 points for Philadelphia, and the Lakers opened up a lead that proved to be insurmountable.
In all, third quarters have proven to be the major bugaboo for the Sixers. But offense as a whole, without a full roster, has been maybe the biggest culprit in the worst start among teams who are actually trying to win basketball games.
“I think that a couple of things are we have to come out with a little more punch to start the third quarter,” Philadelphia head coach Nick Nurse said. “I’m just a little afraid again that it’s kind of shutting the engines down at halftime and not getting them going again soon enough in the third a little bit. We have some plays there and it just seems like we don’t make them, or we go through a drought shooting the ball. We have to collectively figure out a way to play better.”
At their best, the vision of the Sixers is having the three-headed tandem of Embiid to go along with George and Maxey available and able to provide enough to make the Sixers a threat in the Eastern Conference. It would include Embiid and Maxey’s ability to score, along with Embiid’s rebounding and rim protection and George’s ability to fill in the blanks wherever needed.
The big issue isn’t that the Sixers aren’t going to be able to rebound and make the postseason. This is the Eastern Conference we are talking about. The Sixers’ start has been horrid individually. But the east collectively has been dreadful to start the season. The Cleveland Cavaliers are 10-0 and hold the best record in the NBA. The Boston Celtics are 8-2 and look every bit capable of defending their NBA title. But … that’s it. Those are the two teams in the Eastern Conference that are currently above .500. The New York Knicks hold the third spot in the conference. They are 4-4. Every other team in the conference is currently under.500.
Philadelphia is currently three games out of the third spot. So, even with the historical facts working against them, the Sixers have plenty of time to climb out of a hole that may not be that deep. And if they do, then the 1-7 start becomes a cool story to tell the kids and grandkids once time passes. The concern has to be a margin for error that’s dwindling. Embiid is scheduled to make his season debut on Tuesday night against the New York Knicks.
Take that schedule for example. Embiid has said he won’t play in back-to-back games. The Sixers face the Cavaliers on Wednesday night. That means, even if Philadelphia gets a win against New York, it will be hard-pressed to do the same on Wednesday, if Embiid in fact does not play. This entire year for Embiid is dedicated to having him healthy for the postseason.
But Philadelphia has to first make the postseason.
When you start a season well, you build yourself a cushion against things going wrong. When you do what the Sixers are doing, it’s the opposite.
“There isn’t a magic formula for us,” Philadelphia guard Kyle Lowry said. “We have a lot of work to do. We have to get better offensively. We have to get better defensively. We have to play hard. We have to stay positive and not get down on ourselves. It’s a dark time, but we have to figure out a way to handle the adversity.”
The 76ers’ story of who they are going to be this regular season hinges more on Maxey and George than it does Embiid. With their best player probably in and out of the lineup for most of the schedule, how the Sixers play when they have Maxey and George will determine their playoff ceiling and will likely determine how far Philadelphia goes in the playoffs. Getting a No. 7 seed last April led to a matchup with the Knicks without home-court advantage led to a first-round ouster. A top-four seed is still in play, but the Sixers have to figure out a way to start winning games.
Maxey and George were on the floor together once this season, and that was on Monday against the Phoenix Suns where they lost a game they probably should have won. But overall, that was their best played game of the young season. They looked terrific on both ends. They looked dynamic offensively, and they led the Suns by nine points with five minutes remaining. Kevin Durant’s heroics in those last five minutes, combined with clunky crunchtime offense led to Phoenix rallying and winning the game. But that’s the game the Sixers need to hold on to. They looked good in that game but that was the only game on the trip that they did so.
Without question, the Sixers themselves are frustrated. Nobody envisioned a start like this, even when allowing for injuries. But this is a veteran roster with a lot of guys who have been in a lot of situations. They know that this specific situation calls for urgency. They also know there is enough experience to turn around the nightmarish start.
“We have a lot of guys who have been in winning programs,” George said. “We know that’s what we can hold on to. But the main thing is to remain positive. We just have to be positive and we just have to know that we are capable of turning this thing around.”
(Top photo of Paul George: Harry How / Getty Images)
