“We don’t want to be the Hawks.” - Us, for years.
For the Sixers, a season that began with championship dreams is likely going to end with a whimper, in front of no one in Orlando. They are a +5000 longshot to win the title, third place in their own division, and to pour salt into the wound, a +270 underdog in the first round to, you guessed it, the Celtics.
We never wanted to be the Hawks. I don’t mean the current Hawks. The reference was always about the Josh Smith, Al Horford, Joe Johnson Hawks. The Hawks that topped out at 53 wins in 09-10, and averaged 48 wins from 08-11. A team with two probable Hall Of Famers in Joe Johnson and Al Horford, a star-talent who never quite reached his potential in Josh Smith, and a bunch of rotating parts around them.
Over the last three seasons the Sixers have topped out at 52 wins. Their winning percentage of .583 this season would mean 47 wins if they played a full 82-game schedule. They did it with two young star-talents who have not reached their full potential, and you guessed it, Al Horford.
I dunno, sure seems like we’re the fuckin’ Hawks.
As we all argue about who is to blame for why we’re right here, at this spot, find comfort in the fact that whoever you decide to punish is probably at least partially at fault. All is not lost, for sure. As we constantly remind ourselves, Simmons and Embiid are young, talented, and full of potential. But you’re only young for so long, and at some point the word potential starts to shift from an optimistic look at the future to a sad referendum on what could have been.
Let’s lay out everyone’s part in the 50 win team that provides consternation instead of joy, dread instead of excitement, and ultimately a team that is dangerously close to wasting all of its potential.
Let’s start at the top, shall we?
Ownership
We don’t need to bring up the fact that at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and just weeks before preparing a $3 billion offer to buy the Mets, the principle owners of the team tried to cut salaries of everyone making at least $50,000 by up to 20%. They were only stopped after being publicly embarrassed by Joel Embiid, who committed to paying the employees himself. We could spend all day talking about corporate greed and its failings, but for this exercise let’s just discuss how they run the franchise.
Their inability to commit to leadership of basketball operations in a healthy and sound way is really legendary. They truly suck at it. It all began at the start of their stewardship, when they couldn’t decide whether it was Tony DiLeo, Rod Thorn, or Doug Collins who was in charge. Then the ridiculous plan to have Sam Hinkie work with a second general manager, who happened to be the son of their new adviser. Then they let that adviser hire his son to run the franchise. The son then was fired in a fireball of shame and laughter, as he was caught ripping the star player and giving out player health information on social media with burner Twitter accounts.
It didn’t stop there.
After the son was fired, they had their head coach and a minority owner run the draft and free agency. They then ultimately settled on keeping the entire staff of the disgraced GM in place, preventing them from hiring a proven leader who would have wanted to bring in his own, untainted staff. They hired a man who had less than one year of NBA front office experience to be general manager, specifically because they did not want him to have final say. They did so under the guise of collaboration, as if the only way to collaborate is if there are so many people in charge, that no one is.
All the while they’ve allowed marketing and sales executives to help shape basketball operations, all while doing their best to “separate the good people of the Delaware Valley from their wallets,” as a wise man once said.
It all starts here, and while we could get lucky (see also; Dan Gilbert), it would seem that a change in ownership would be the best path toward success.
The Front Office
It was an admirable plan, I’ll give them that. If this current Sixers front office said that every decision was collaborative, then none of them would have to take the blame when something went wrong. It’s really corporate CYA at its best.
Even post-Fultz disaster, the Sixers would be a much better team had the front office made absolutely zero trades or new-signings since 2017. Instead of the big ole mess they have now, the roster would be something like Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, Robert Covington, JJ Redick, Dario Saric (statistically the *best* lineup in the NBA in 2017-18), Landry Shamet, Furkan Korkmaz, Shake Milton, Matisse Thybulle, Markelle Fultz, along with two additional first round draft picks and two second round draft picks. Even better, they would not have nearly $300 million tied up in Tobias Harris and Al Horford.
Is that a championship roster? I’m not sure, but I do know that this one isn’t. The Sixers won’t be a championship roster until either Embiid or Simmons is a championship player anyway.
I can’t stand Redick, but the decision to let Redick walk and sign Horford is truly one of the worst decisions in the history of Philadelphia front offices. If for no other reason that Embiid absolutely loved playing with Redick, as he pointed out on a recent podcast. Embiid repeatedly said that the offense he ran with Redick was the best in the league, and he will likely never find that kind of chemistry with another player. Embiid noted that he was so disappointed with the decision it robbed him of his desire to play basketball. Instead of signing Redick, they gave twice as much money to Al Horford, who is 34 years old and plays the same position as Embiid. Even if you don’t think Horford is a center, then he plays the same position as Harris, who coincidentally plays the same position as Ben Simmons.
The front office is terrible and they need to hire someone real and put that person in charge. Individually, I’m sure there are salvageable parts for someone else. Brand is well-liked and bright and will land with another front office. I’m sure Rucker and Cohen are good at something other than throwing other people under the bus.
The Coach
Brett Brown had several years of doing a great job, but not anymore. The players have either tuned him out or never tuned him in at all. He’s been staring at a puzzle for so long that the pieces don’t make sense to him anymore, which is a real problem when the pieces don’t actually make sense.
Brown was brought in to be a steward of the rebuild. He did that and more. He played shield for Hinkie, then for Colangelo, then for Team Collaboration. He dealt with changing rosters, injuries, and mental blocks. He took a team from a 10-win season, to a 52-win season when they were projected to win 38 games. He did a lot of good things, but the time has run out.
After Brown lauded Ben Simmons publicly for a change in outlook as far as defense and shooting, Simmons almost purposefully and defiantly stopped shooting and defending for several games.
The current roster is poorly put together and not his fault, but it’s the coach’s job to make the best out of every situation, and he has not done that this year. He’s done it a lot of years, but not this one. Seven years is a long-time to be a coach of one team in the NBA, and it just seems to everyone like Brown’s time has run out.
The Players
This is last, but it’s not least.
Either Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons are superstars or they’re young players who we have to be patient with. We can’t have it both ways. Superstars do not get the benefit of patience. Nobody is watching Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kawhi Leonard, LeBron James, James Harden, Kevin Durant, (when healthy), Kyrie Irving (when healthy) or Damian Lillard and preaching patience. It’s one or the other.
There is no one who has watched the NBA bubble-games, seen what Devin Booker, Damian Lillard, or Giannis Antetokounmpo have done, and said “yeah, I believe Embiid or Simmons can do that right now.” So let’s agree neither player is a superstar at this moment.
If you’re a young player building toward superstardom, it’s important that you get better. And while we can pick small things here and there that Embiid and Simmons have gained in the last few years, it’s very difficult to say that either player is substantially better than they were two years ago. Simmons has gotten better defensively and Embiid has recently shown an improvement in how he handles double teams, but neither player has shown a marked improvement in a meaningful skill to take them from here to there.
Simmons still isn’t shooting, getting to the line at an impressive rate, or shooting those free throws at an improved clip. Embiid still is prone to halves of basketball where he looks disengaged, and seems to have to regularly convince himself that he really enjoys what he’s doing. While injuries, large or small, are not his fault -- and he does seem to be in great shape -- we’ve already seen Embiid leave games in Orlando twice after getting hurt.
I don’t blame Al Horford or Tobias Harris for accepting giant contracts or being the players they’ve always been, but paying those two guys $66 million a year is laughably insane. There is no world in which either player is in that class unless he was the “final piece.” Neither is.
So, What Now?
Look, they could beat the Celtics I guess. We could have a moment where we talk ourselves into this, but it’s not real.
Ultimately, the best path forward would be for new ownership to blow out the front office, hire someone who knows what they’re doing, get off the Horford contract and build a roster that has a set of guards that aren’t the worst of any playoff team. That would be a start.
If Embiid and Simmons want to be recognized as superstars, they have to prepare, play, and lead like them. That would help.
Everyone is young until they’re not young anymore. There’s always time until it runs out. The clock is ticking.