30 Teams in 30 Days · 76ers: Embiid’s fate?

Embiid played 19 games last season and 58 games in the past two years - and has a 240 million contract for the next four years.

George played 41 games last season, averaging 16 points per game, the lowest since 2013. There are still three years of 160 million contract.

Embiid + George + Maxey worked together for a total of 15 games last season.

This is the tone of the Philadelphia 76ers next season: it is said that they "want to get younger and improve their athletic ability" - which sounds like the slogan of a typical rebuilding team.

Two years ago at this time, they were still dreaming of winning the Eastern Conference championship.

No one is sure whether Embiid can play 9 games, 29 games or 49 games; no one knows whether George can still play and how long he can play.

Watford (he has a nose for rebounds and can be considered organized given his height) and Jabari Walker can probably take away Oubre's time, and Bona can probably make Drummond less necessary. Maxi will still improve. McCain can help Maxey by staying healthy.

Philadelphia's lineup has a wonderful deformity: the frontcourt lacks height, rim protection and rebounding, but has three starting-level guards: Maxey, McCain and Edgecomb. So they will be the kind of "Oh, we lost again, but click on the highlights to see what if those three defenders did something again?"

McCain played well before getting injured last season, but how far can he go if he really gets starting-level minutes?

After arriving from Dallas, Grimes played well for two months—averaging 22+5+5 per game—but is it really worth, for example, a three-year, 80 million contract? If Philadelphia wants to keep him, it must first find a way to get rid of the contracts of Drummond and Oubre.

Edgecomb is the kind of boy who is unlikely to make the wrong choice:

"His genius is obvious, he runs and jumps like flying, his talent is amazing and his passion explodes. We want this! - What do you mean, besides being physically good and having a good attitude, he is just as good at passing the basketball as he is and dribbling the ball? This is something that can be practiced! No one can do it at birth! Play! We have to choose talent and grind it out! Don't mention Ben Simmons! It would be great if there is someone who can run with Maxi! Look at Osar and Cunningham next door, why can't we do this! "Some people have said that Edgecombe is the Jets version of Suggs or Derrick White, who is pragmatic and hard-working. Even if his jump shot can't be polished, he is expected to become a ferocious version of Iguodala.

With him, Maxi and McCain, the dance in the mud can also be beautiful...right?

And Philadelphia has one more advantage next season: their draft picks are protected in the top four, so they don't have to deliberately mess them up. They can let young people grow according to their nature, and then wait until 2026 to choose a good one.

So, in the end, maybe, we can only count on Maxi.

Maxi's five-year career is simply magical:

In his rookie year, he was a substitute, one step away from the Eastern Conference finals; in his second year, he emerged as a starter; in his third year, he scored 30 points in Tianwangshan in the Eastern Conference semifinals, one step away from the Eastern Conference finals, and he was the wing of the MVP.

The fifth grader suddenly became the ace of the team, an All-Star, and a leading player, and then the team suddenly fell into trouble.

It was like letting go of other players' lives - and he was only 24 years old.

I think Maxi is the player with the best combination of speed + shooting + throwing. He moves like gliding, steps back like dancing, and his shots are accurate. He became a star, but still maintained the positivity and enthusiasm of a role player.

But when he plays ball, it's still like dancing in the mud.

What I mean by this is...not to mention George's injury, after all, his peak has passed.

It is possible that Joel Embiid, the first center scoring champion + MVP since the Sharks, will represent the Philadelphia 76ers at dusk.

The most terrifying thing about last season was not that Embiid only played 19 games, but that in these 29 games, he shot 44%, made 3.3 turnovers in 30 minutes, and averaged 24 points per game.

If we talk about the 2023-24 season, Embiid can still maintain the efficiency of scoring one point per game, which makes people believe that "Embiid can play but just doesn't play." Last season, he showed difficulty in moving: he couldn't score in offense and shooting, and he couldn't move defensively: he only played 19 games, and he didn't play well in these 19 games.

He is not a modern light three-pointer + long rim protector - Chet and Turner who reached the finals last season - he cannot switch defenses to achieve those jump shots of Leonard in 2019 and Tatum in 2023; his huge body, agile movement and face-to-basket jumper maintain his high scoring efficiency and damage, but if injuries deprive them of these, it may be a cliff-like decline: Cousins ​​​​is a lesson learned from the past.

And his problem is not on the court.

From 2021 to now, everything in Philadelphia - Embiid, Benci, the Philadelphia 76ers themselves - is about to, or has become a thing of the past, but it has not yet come to an end.

We can blame the 76ers: interns can handle recovery, do not believe in player injury feedback, indulge players (Benxi back then), amateur decision-making, and lineup errors.

And Embiid: Doesn’t trust anyone on the team, doesn’t respond to calls/texts, misses meetings, suffers from constant injuries:

A team that is not professional enough meets players who are not professional enough.

The summer before, ESPN had an excellent article saying that before Embiid played in the NBA, he was the darling of the media.

But in the past year, he has been wary of the media.

He admits that he has difficulty trusting people and that he doesn't have many friends. He said his family was very quiet growing up. Before the start of his rookie year, his 13-year-old brother died in a truck accident. He said he had tens of thousands of unread messages.

After 2 wins and 11 losses last season, the team held a closed-door meeting. News leaked the next day that Maxey reportedly publicly questioned Embiid. From then on, Embiid couldn't trust anyone.

He thinks Barkley and AI are both great, but they have never won a championship.. He said he taught himself not to trust anyone. Grant Hill met Embiid and thought he was gentle and smart, but was not accurately or adequately portrayed. Hill believes that without Embiid, Team USA wouldn’t be able to beat Serbia — and Jokic — at the Olympics.

In the early summer of 2023, Embiid complained that Jokic had won nothing but had two MVPs, and then he won his own MVP. That was his peak moment. Then in the 2023 playoffs, he was ended by Tatum. Played 58 games since then. He was undergoing tremendous emotional and physical torture.

If you understand his thoughts, you may be able to understand him, from his liveliness in speaking out wild words on social media in his early years, to his flamboyant attack on Jokic two years ago and his enthusiasm for actively asking for the ball, to his obvious emotional instability last season. The minds of many players will stay forever in the moment when he became famous, because from now on he will only have people around him who are willing to speak up for him; Embiid is different: according to ESPN, he can no longer trust anyone.

This seems to be a strange fate: Philadelphia's superstars - Chamberlain, Barkley, Iverson, Embiid - will eventually become the lone star of the scoring leader and rebounding leader, and slowly become lonely in the team. Chamberlain went to the Lakers, Barkley went to the Suns, Iverson was sent to the Pistons, what about Embiid?

I don’t know.