It’s not like the Philadelphia 76ers haven’t been a bad team before. A little more than a half-century ago, they set a record for losses in a single season with 73, guided by the inexperienced former master of the highly respected LIU Blackbirds, Roy Rubin. More recently, they set two different records NBA record for consecutive losses, first equalling the Cleveland Cavaliers’ in-season record of 26 during a two-month stretch in 2013-14, then following that up with an even longer stretch of 28 games that spread out over the last ten games of 2014-15 and the first 18 of the following season, a number equalled last year by the horrific Detroit Pistons over a horrific two-month stretch that ran from just before Halloween to just before New Year’s Day.
But somehow the results from the first 14 games of this season seem that much worse. As THE LIBERTY LINE’s Paul Smith wailed late yesterday:
Welp, the Philadelphia 76ers dropped another one tonight in Memphis, falling 117-111 to a shorthanded Grizzlies squad.
It…was (a)game that perfectly summed up the mess this season has become for the 76ers, who are now 2-12 on the season and sit in dead last in the NBA standings. While it already felt like rock bottom after Miami earlier this week, this team keeps finding new ways to dig themselves deeper into the ground.
For a team that reached the playoffs last year, losing in an competitive and emotional six-game series to the Knicks, and then aggressively pursued roster upgrades led by their purge of Paul George from his hometown Clippers, the underperformance so far has been more than a tad disheartening, particularly in a market that regularly calls for the heads of those who actually achieve success. Ask Nick Sirianni, the coach of the 8-2 Eagles, or Carlos Estevez, the Phillies’ relief pitcher who made one particularly fatal pitch to Francisco Lindor.
As Smith further whined, last night there actually was reason for optimism–but not for long.
Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and Paul George finally shared the court—for a little while, anyway. George limped off in the third quarter after hyperextending the same knee he tweaked in the preseason. Nick Nurse said after the game that George could’ve come back in but decided to sit out due to “tightness.”
It’s the kind of injury update that doesn’t sound serious but feels ominous, especially for a team that can’t seem to stay healthy and fails time and time again to provide any sliver of insight into their player’s injuries.
FIELD LEVEL MEDIA reported some additional good news/bad news:
Joel Embiid, playing in just his fourth game this season, led the 76ers with 35 points and 11 rebounds. Jared McCain added 20 points and Guerschon Yabusele scored 17 for Philadelphia, which lost its fifth straight and for the 10th time in 11 games. Philadelphia point guard Tyrese Maxey tallied eight points on 3-of-13 shooting with three assists in his return to the lineup after missing six consecutive games with a strained right hamstring.
This on the heels of, as NEWSWEEK’s Alex Kirschenbaum reported yesterday, a come-to-Jesus moment where Maxey had made news in another fashion:
Things apparently came to a head after the 76ers’ latest loss, a 106-89 blowout defeat at the hands of former Philadelphia star swingman Jimmy Butler and the rest of his Miami Heat on Monday.
During a recent appearance on ESPN’s “The Pat MacAfee Show,” NBA insider Shams Charania revealed that Maxey blasted Embiid during a postgame team meeting. “Last night they had an hour-and-a-half-long team meeting in that postgame locker room in Miami,” Charania said. “I think a lot was said, a lot was accepted, a lot was aired out. Coaches say, ‘We need players to practice harder, show more attention to detail.’ Players saying, ‘We need to be coached harder, we want to be coached harder.'”
“But most notable of all that, Pat — I was told Tyrese Maxey, their 24-year-old young star, he challenged Joel Embiid, the face of their franchise… that ‘we need you to be on time for team activities,’ saying that there was a trickle-down effect. When you are missing, when you are tardy, when you are late for what I was told [was] everything… it has an effect on the rest of the locker room.”
Embiid, who somehow managed to waive off his recent litany of injuries long enough during the Paris Olympics to lead the United States to a gold medal, has been particularly embattled and a focus of the notorious Philly boobird mentality, especially in light of being given a $193 million contract extension just before training camp started that will assure he remains a fixture–or at least a financial albatorss–in Philadelphia through the end of the decade. Maxey, who emerged as a rising talent last season, at least appears willing to fill some of the void of leadership. But production? Not quite yet, apparently.
In a conference as weak as the NBA’s Eastern, where at the moment just four of 15 teams sport winning records, there is still room and time for recovery. Even as the NBA’s bottom-feeder, they sit just four games out of a playoff spot (behind those very same Pistons who were in the midst of that 28-game schneid a year ago) and 3 1/2 out of the play-in.
But until they can actually stay healthy and work in unison, they’ll likely be a lot more folks showing up looking like our friend sporting that fancy attire above.
Take heart, ’86ers. Nick Sirianni’s players are doing just fine, and Carlos Estevez is a free agent.
Courage…