Philadelphia sports fans have been reveling in the Eagles’ Super Bowl win, the team’s first since 2018. One added benefit to that Lombardi Trophy is that it has allowed fans to ignore the 76ers, who have been arguably the biggest dumpster fire in the NBA this season.
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The Sixers had high hopes after acquiring Paul George during the offseason, but George’s ineffectiveness, combined with injuries to Joel Embiid and rookie Jared McCain, have submarined their chances. At 22-41, they now sit 3.5 games behind the Bulls for the 10th seed and the final play-in spot.
George has been such a massive disappointment that he put his podcast on hiatus to focus on turning things around, but undoubtedly the biggest culprit behind the Sixers’ struggles has been Embiid’s inability to stay on the court.
He’s played only 19 games this season and was recently ruled out for the year with lingering knee issues. Even when Embiid has played, it hasn’t helped the Sixers much, as they’ve gone 8-11 in those 19 games.
This situation is even more catastrophic than just one bad season, though, as the Sixers made the awful decision to hand the former MVP a three-year, $193 million extension in September, despite Embiid already being under contract and not being healthy at that time.
Shannon Sharpe and Chad Johnson spoke about Embiid’s situation on last night’s episode of Nightcap, and Sharpe had a great point on why Embiid played in the Olympics this summer despite not being fully healthy.
“He did that because he knows his money is guaranteed, so it doesn’t matter. It’s kind of like a salaried worker. They take PTO. Well if you’re not a salaried worker and you only get paid if your black ass shows up to work, that changes things.”
Things are looking bad for Joel Embiid and the 76ers, but this situation was entirely avoidable
Sharpe’s take, though hilarious, is also spot-on. It’s admirable that Embiid wanted to play for his adopted country, and he did help Team USA win Olympic gold. That can’t be overlooked, but it came at a tremendous cost to him and the team that’s paying him so much money.
Embiid has missed nearly half of all Sixers games since he was drafted by the team in 2014. Sixers fans went through the process for this? Just over a decade after being the bleakest franchise in pro sports, the Sixers aren’t far off from regaining that ignominious distinction.
To make matters worse, the franchise will have to give up their first-round draft pick to the Thunder if they don’t land in the top six. It’s a very real possibility, since Philly currently owns the seventh-worst record in the league and could be jumped anyway if the lottery ping pong balls turn out bad. Sixers fans may have suffered through this year for nothing at all.
Philadelphia could attempt to force Embiid into medical retirement if he’s unable to play a year from now. The move would allow them to strike Embiid’s salary from their cap and free them up to build the team in other ways. They would still be on the hook to pay him, however.
It’s tremendously sad that a player who is just two years removed from winning the MVP award could be on the verge of exiting the league, but history has shown that 7-footers with injury histories don’t tend to age gracefully. Hopefully Embiid can get back to full strength, but the Sixers need to prepare for life without him if he can’t.
