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Tim Bontemps, ESPN
THE PHILADELPHIA 76ERS might have won the NBA offseason, but not before massively gambling on the franchise’s future.
After falling in six games to the New York Knicks in the first round of the 2024 playoffs, Philadelphia entered the offseason with just two players under contract: 2023 undrafted rookie guard Ricky Council IV and 2023 Most Valuable Player Joel Embiid.
But within a few weeks, the 76ers had transformed themselves into a championship threat once again. Paul George left his hometown of Los Angeles to join Philly on a four-year maximum deal, the first current All-Star to change teams in free agency in five years. Tyrese Maxey, after being told to wait his turn the prior summer to preserve cap space rather than signing a rookie contract extension, landed a new five-year max contract. Kelly Oubre Jr. and Kyle Lowry re-signed, and Caleb Martin, Eric Gordon and Andre Drummond were brought in. And last month, Embiid signed a three-year contract extension of his own.
“It’s probably not recommended,” 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey told ESPN with a laugh while speaking on the team’s high-wire act this summer. “But it was definitely the best plan — even though it was a very, very risky plan.”
It was a risk the franchise believed it needed to take.
After several years of instability, drama and a revolving door of stars slotting next to Embiid — from Jimmy Butler to Ben Simmons to James Harden — the 76ers have surrounded Embiid with a stable cast of supporting talent, led by a pair of co-stars in Maxey and George. And after years of watching their superstar center deal with season-defining injuries, the 76ers appear to have ramped up their plan to keep Embiid healthy as he chases the feat eluding his Hall of Fame career.
“I’ve accomplished everything [individually],” Embiid told ESPN. “But there’s one thing missing, which is to win a championship.”
EMBIID’S CAREER HAS been hampered by ill-timed injuries, most notably in the playoffs.
He suffered facial fractures in 2018 and 2022 and knee injuries in 2021 and 2023. Last season, Embiid was on pace to join Wilt Chamberlain as the only players in NBA history with more points than minutes played, but a left knee injury in late January forced him out until April with little ramp-up time heading into the postseason. (Embiid also revealed during the first round that he had been playing through Bell’s palsy.)
As a result, after the Knicks series ended, Embiid texted Morey.
“‘We got to do whatever it takes to make sure that in the postseason I’m healthy,'” Embiid recalled at the team’s media day last month.
The 30-year-old Embiid is doing his part, arriving at training camp having lost 25 to 30 pounds with the goal to lose more. Pointing to how Hall of Fame big man Tim Duncan transformed his body as his career progressed as inspiration, Embiid hopes a slimmer version of himself can better handle the rigors of the NBA season. “It’s just the evolution of your body, and getting older and finding ways to stay afloat and be as dominant as I’ve always been,” he said.
And, after playing in just 433 of a possible 637 games across the past eight seasons — not counting the first two years of his career that were lost to foot injuries — Embiid’s days of playing back-to-backs appear to be over.
“If I had to guess,” Embiid said, “I would probably never play back-to-backs the rest of my career.”
“We’re going to be smart about it,” Morey said. “Part of being smart about it is having both Paul and Joel probably not play many back to backs, if any.”
It has become an organization-wide priority to get Embiid, who on Sunday was ruled out for the rest of the preseason as he ramps up for the 76ers’ season opener against the Milwaukee Bucks, to the playoffs in the best health possible.
For Nurse, Philly’s plan should look familiar. Nurse coached Kawhi Leonard during the Raptors’ breakthrough championship season in 2018-19, during which Leonard played just 60 games and sat one leg of every back-to-back. The plan helped Leonard play all 24 games during Toronto’s postseason run, averaging 30.5 points and 39.1 minutes per game en route to Finals MVP.
For Embiid and Philadelphia, emulating that plan could present a challenge. In 2018-19, the Raptors went 17-5 in the 22 games Leonard sat. Nurse, though, was quick to point out that the version of the East was far shallower, in terms of top-end teams, than the current conference projects.
“It wasn’t the same deal,” Nurse told ESPN. “But I’m OK with that. I don’t think we can get super caught up with [getting to] 45 wins, 55 wins or 65 wins.”
Embiid will also — begrudgingly — continue to wear a brace on the left knee he injured in January. But while he has always been uncomfortable wearing either a facemask or brace at any point in his career, he said it won’t stop him from doing the things that have made him one of the league’s most dominant forces.
“It’s the right thing to do, and the right thing that’s going to give me the support for the rest of my career,” Embiid said. “For me, it’s a mental thing. I hated it. [But] I started telling myself, ‘OK, I have to do it, that’s the only way they’re going to let me play. …
“It might not look as good as it used to, with the jab or the pull-up and all that stuff, but it’ll still work.”
IN THE OPENING hours of free agency, Drummond looked at his phone and saw a surprising name pop up. It was Embiid. He was hoping for a reunion.
“Getting a phone call from the best center in the NBA saying, ‘I need you here’ … it’s hard to tell him no,” Drummond told ESPN with a smile. “I spoke to a lot of teams this summer, and he was probably the third or fourth person to call me.
“I wasn’t even expecting to hear from him. … He just gave me an idea of what he was looking for and he needed me to come back to really help him out to win something bigger than him. He’s already been an MVP, he’s got his scoring title … he’s done everything.
“And now he’s going to try to win a championship.”
Landing Drummond — arguably the best backup center in the NBA and someone, sources told ESPN, Philadelphia has repeatedly tried to get back with the franchise since trading him in the Harden deal two years ago — should help the 76ers avoid hemorrhaging points whenever their superstar center is on the bench.
Across each of the past four seasons, the 76ers have been at least 10 points per 100 possessions better with Embiid on the court than when he sits. And even with the series of injuries he has had in the playoffs, and when his individual numbers have dipped, that disparity has carried over.
For example, Philadelphia outscored New York by 46 points in 248 minutes with Embiid on the court in their six-game series in last season’s playoffs. The Knicks outscored the the 76ers by 47 points in the 45 minutes he sat.
“The splits the last couple years, and even the series against New York, we can’t have that,” Embiid said. “When we put another team on the floor, we got to make sure that we have enough to stay afloat, so [recruiting] was a big deal for me.”
Philadelphia knew it would need more than just Drummond to solve its depth issue. The 76ers initially expected to be in play for Martin only if George opted to stay with the Clippers or went elsewhere in free agency. Instead, Philadelphia swooped in and landed him on a four-year deal when the market broke against him. Now, Martin, George and Oubre — one of the best value signings in the league last season who returned on a two-year, $16 million deal — will all start, with Gordon and Lowry both providing veteran depth.
“I like where we stack up,” George told ESPN. “As we’ve been saying, Joel, he’s still a trump card, right? There’s nobody that can really match up with him. And then you just have great complimentary pieces around him.
“There’s just so much talent in this group. We can play fast, we can play small, we can play big, we can be a great defensive group. We can be really good offensively. … it’s definitely going to make for a fun season.”
In the East race, the defending champion Boston Celtics brought back their entire rotation, with Morey telling ESPN that he believes Boston is the NBA’s best team since the Golden State Warriors had Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant together five years ago. The Knicks swung a pair of massive trades for Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns; the Milwaukee Bucks still have Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard; the Miami Heat still have Butler, Bam Adebayo and coach Erik Spoelstra; and young, up-and-coming teams, such as the Indiana Pacers, Cleveland Cavaliers and Orlando Magic, all believe they can finish in the top four in the conference.
Still, the 76ers are hopeful this season will see them tell a different story after repeated postseason disappointments. By making the number of quality additions that it did, Philadelphia believes it can stick to its plan to monitor the games and minutes for both Embiid and George, preserving their health for later. The drama from the past few years has seemingly been left in the past, too, with annual roster uncertainty giving way to a core under contract for the next several years.
“The names on the sheet look really good, but this isn’t 2K. It’s not fantasy basketball. It’s real life,” Maxey told ESPN. “So the pieces got to fit together. If we get the pieces to fit together, then we play extremely hard, then we have a chance.”
“That’s a question I can only answer after we get on the floor,” Embiid said, when asked if he saw this season as his best chance to break through for a title. “We’ve got a pretty good amount of talent, but you’ve still got to go out and figure out how to do it.
“That’s why I’m excited for everybody to just be locked in for a couple years. … We’ve got a pretty good chance to accomplish something.”