This could be final run for Embiid and Simmons
Two games at the minimum, 16 at the most, the great likelihood being somewhere in between.
Unless the 76ers come reasonably close to winning a world championship, and every once in a while they don’t, that will be it for an era.
Two home games, beginning Sunday at 1.
Sixteen home games at the most, perhaps culminating in a carry-on at Frankford and Cottman. Somewhere in there. “This is our opportunity,” Tobias Harris said, “to do something great.”
Opportunity, singular. Because if the Sixers don’t advance deep into the Eastern Conference finals, meaning if they are eliminated sooner than double overtime of a third-round Game 6, there will be no reason to try to build a championship in 2021-2022, or in 2022-2023, or ever again on a foundation of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.
That doesn’t mean the Sixers won’t or can’t win a championship this year on the foundation of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. Indeed, they should win a championship, or at least come entertainingly, professionally close enough to one. This is their time. This is their situation. But if it all ends early — a subjective phrase,
but fans will know that when they feel it — one of the two franchise pillars has to go.
No one should have to ask which one.
Harris rightly called it an opportunity, one that should not be taken for granted. Simmons was asked if he saw it that way, too.
“That’s a great question,” he said. “I won’t take it for granted, for sure, because I was in the same position last year and unfortunately I got hurt and wasn’t able to play in the playoffs. So for me, and for this team, we have to take it as this might be the last opportunity we get to play
with each other.”
The Sixers could go 16and-0 in the tournament and win every game by double figures and there still will be changes. Rosters change. The Sixers were swept from the playoffs last year, and by the time they hit training camp, they had a new coach, a new acting general manager, new shooters, a different bench and a new urgency. But at some point, there will be no reason to keep trimming around the edges, to try J.J. Redick one year, Jimmy Butler the next, Josh Richardson the next, Seth Curry the next. At some point, it becomes clear that the edging is not the problem.
Embiid is a strong MVP candidate, the only one of the three finalists from
the Eastern Conference. If Nikola Jokic and Steph Curry split the Western Conference vote, he could win the car. He’s a little injury prone but he is a certified superstar, as valuable a player as there is in the sport, the most complete player ever to wear a Sixers uniform. There is nothing the Sixers could receive in return that would make sense in any Embiid trade. So he’s going to play his entire career as a Sixer, and if that means no championship, that means no championship.
Simmons, though, could be valuable in a changeof-styles kind of trade. Most NBA coaches fear his defense and play-making ability; at least they say as much on a nightly basis. Maybe he could
find fulfillment elsewhere, with the Sixers receiving a franchise-changing value in exchange. All Doc Rivers knows, and he is going to be central in any decision, is that there are plenty of ways to win an NBA championship, and that he will be open to them all.
True story: He is not even heavily interested in The Process, what it was, when it began, or how it unfolded.
“I don’t know how long ago that was,” Rivers said. “So, you know, it’s funny. You can go either way on whether that was successful or not. If you gave any GM a 12-year plan, he’d take it, if you know what I mean. I don’t know when that process started. I am being honest, I don’t know.”
It started around 2013, about a standard probasketball career ago. It helped deliver Embiid and Simmons to Pattison Ave., and it helped provide the Sixers with the homecourt advantage this year, at least into the NBA Finals.
But Rivers did not relocate to Philadelphia so he could wait for the EmbiidSimmons tandem to yield a championship. Nor did Daryl Morey. They are not on a 12-year plan. They do believe Embiid and Simmons can make a satisfying playoff run this year. They’re probably right. It’s just that Sixers fans are about to have two more in-person chances, and no more than 16, to find out.
“That’s how we have to look at every game,” Simmons said. “We have to go
out every game and play like it’s our last.”
The Wizards won’t be a problem in the first round, and neither the Hawks or Knicks are at the point where they can win a second-round series. So the Sixers will be in the Eastern Conference finals.
That’s where the immediate future of the franchise could change.
And that’s why Sixers fans should take it all in this time, Embiid’s threepointers, Simmons’ oneman fast breaks, Embiid’s defense, Simmons’ court awareness.
Enjoy it all because, as Simmons knows, it could be the last chance.