With leaders sidelined, Sixers still trying to forge an
By the time Joel Embiid backed into an Orlando basket support Sunday and did some kind of damage to his left ankle, the Sixers already were asking themselves one vital question.
Who, exactly, are they? For a while, they thought they had an idea. They knew they were built a strange way, through a rotten process, ever willing to keep overturning the roster until they got it right. But as they gathered for the 2019-2020 season, and even as they did it again after a fourmonth health scare, they at least were confident in their foundation.
There would be Embiid, who had been around since 2014. And there would be Ben Simmons, a fixture since 2016. AllStars both, neither had ever played for another pro team. Even if they had some imperfections, they were examples of how the lose-to-win process could yield talent. And as a tandem, even if they were never quite as comfortable with one another as necessary for a deep postseason run, they were the core.
Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.
Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid.
Build on that.
So, Sam Hinkie would. And so Jerry Colangelo would. And so Bryan Colangelo would. And so Brett Brown would. And so Elton Brand would. They would build, and build, and build some more. One year, an exasperated Brown was made to employ so many point guards, 16 by one count, that he would jam his hands on his hips and say he never wanted to coach such a parade of basketball job-seekers again. Just the same, the turnover continued. Not coincidentally, the turnovers did, too.
To Sunday, then, and a game the Sixers would lose in the BubbleDome, 124-121, to the Portland Trail Blazers, and to a moment of telling horror. With Simmons gone for the season with a kneecap displacement, and with the ever injury-challenged Embiid having been led to the trainers’ room, there was Brown three-plus games from what for him will be a career-defining postseason, surrounded by a virtual team of newcomers. What he would do, and why, and for how long, would say plenty.
The Sixers nearly won Sunday, and would have forced overtime had Josh Richardson not been fouled multiple times on the final possession, the referees not bothering to exhale into their whistles. Brown would mine value from Al Horford, who was signed in the offseason for just such an emergency and who would score an efficient 15 points. Brown would try small lineups, rough lineups and a variety of defenses, none able to deter Damian Lillard from unfurling a 51-spot. Then there was Richardson, who would need to score in the absence of Simmons. He would go for 34 points, and more, continue to be a pro-sports rarity: The newcomer to a team able to commandeer a leadership presence.
“It’s just one of those things that comes from involvement in the game,” Richardson said. “I feel like it kind of carries over to the rest of everything, when I feel involved, when the ball is moving, when we’re playing our way, I feel like everybody is in good spirits.”
In the second half, which Embiid watched on the socially distanced bench, the Sixers showed what they might be should their center be gone for a while. In character, Brown said he was unsure about Embiid’s ankle after the game. Richardson, though, hinted that the injury did not appear catastrophic. Just the same, Brown would not commit to playing any of his key players in the final three seeding games before the playoffs. If he doesn’t, that means the Sixers once again will enter the succeed-or-perish portion of the season without having had the usual time to mold into a championship unit.
The inclination is to blame it on an odd season. But that oddity, for that operation, has been going on for much, much longer.
Without Embiid, Brown can continue to ride Horford, who has played 65 games as a Sixer, at center. Without Simmons, he could have Shake Milton, 57 games into his Sixers career. He would need a go-to scorer. That would be Tobias Harris, who’d arrived just two trade deadlines ago. Richardson, in his first Sixers season, will have the authority to shoot and to lead.
And from there, the new-roster smell would ooze from Alec Burks and Glenn Robinson III, who’d just arrived in February, and from Matisse Thybulle, a rookie. There would be Furkan Korkmaz, a year removed from being a trans-pass holder on the Delaware-to-Philadelphia shuttle. Raul Neto? He’d been around for less than a year. Kyle O’Quinn is in his first season. Norvel Pelle too.
Not that pro sports roster upheaval is unique to the Sixers. Ordinarily, though, it is done around something of a core, a shooter added here, a defender added there, a draft pick working out quickly, a veteran brought in for some valuable knowledge.
But without Simmons, and perhaps without Embiid for another three games, the Sixers are a virtual cast of basketball extras on a rush order to be championship contenders. It can be done. But it will take Brown to be at his professional best.
“I thought we did a good job playing together,” Richardson said Sunday. “If you don’t have Ben and Jo out there, it falls on us.”
Without Simmons and without Embiid, it will fall on first-year Sixers, second-year holdovers, a rookie and Horford, who was pried from the Celtics to keep it all together.
Brown’s team does not yet have an identity. One way or another, it will have one soon.
Contact Jack McCaffery at jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com