Here’s the thing about gamblers and gambling: Sometimes the best of bets — the smartest of plans — still leaves you broke, bedraggled and unsure of what comes next.
That’s the state of things today for the Philadelphia 76ers.
Less than a year ago, in the golden-hued afterglow of what then seemed like a stunning offseason coup, Philly was the toast of the league. Daryl Morey, the team’s general manager and president of basketball operations, had wagered big on a free-agency overhaul.
He had, it seemed, won big.
But Friday’s announcement by the Sixers that they’re shutting down Joel Embiid just hammers home the bad run of luck Philly has had this season, and the colossal failure Morey’s moves look like they’ll end up being.
Paul George, acquired last summer in free agency with a four-year, $212 million deal, was not, in fact, the sure-thing winning move we all thought.
The other additions, too — a total overhaul of the roster, outside of Embiid and Tyrese Maxey — at the time seemed equally like Morey being Morey: Swinging big, taking chances, aiming for the moon, and landing a top-level NBA championship contender.
Vegas had them at 9-to-1 to win it all just before the season started, the NBA’s fourth-best odds. Pundits praised Philly. Rival front offices listed the Sixers as an elite team, right up there, or so the thinking went, with the Celtics, Thunder and Knicks.
Reality, today, has them at a dismally different spot: Sitting at 20-38, putting out team statements that reinforce, in fact, the only certain thing at this point with Embiid and his team is that it will not get better anytime soon — if it does indeed get better at all.
“The Philadelphia 76ers and Joel Embiid have been consulting with top specialists regarding ongoing issues with his left knee,” Philly’s statement read Friday afternoon. “After further evaluation, it has been determined that he is medically unable to play and will miss the remainder of the season to focus on treatment and rehabilitation.
“We are working with medical experts to determine the exact treatment plan and will update media when we have more information. The team and specialists will continue working with Joel to ensure the best path forward for his long-term health and performance.”
It’s easy to say you can’t blame Morey for Embiid’s continued injury woes, but this is where the gamble inherent to Morey’s approach — ambition might be a kinder description — pins this season and its short- and long-term realities squarely on him.
The fact is, Morey has always taken risks to bring in talent. He did it with James Harden, a saga that ended in acrimony and personal insults. He did it in Houston with Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook. Hell, Morey did in back in 2012, when Houston drafted talented but clearly risky prospect Royce White with the 16th overall pick.
And so Embiid’s precarious fitness — and what seemed a possibly closing window last summer — meant any big moves would succeed or fail through the prism of how they worked, or failed to work, because of Embiid.
Not long ago, Embiid was a reigning MVP dropping 70-point basketball masterclasses. But that was then, this is now, and the fact remains that perhaps Embiid’s window is currently, or possible already has, closed. And if that’s the case, the same will be true for the Sixers legitimate hopes of turning things around next year, or beyond.
Take PG’s contract. He turns 35 in May, has shown almost no flashes of greatness even this year, and recently announced, on his podcast, that he was putting it on hiatus, in part, “to focus on getting my body right, getting mentally right.”
Far be it for me to state the obvious here but: It’s February. Shouldn’t your body and mental state be “right” already? And if a podcast gets in the way of that, shouldn’t it have been paused, say, months ago?
Either way, this is the guy Morey brought in and paid big money with big years as part of the plan for the Sixers to win now, and George has not exactly covered himself in glory in Philly.
With that contract starting to look as problematic as Embiid’s health, it feels like another celebrated Morey gamble will actually end very, very badly.
And on it goes. Nick Nurse, well regarded, finds his seat very hot. The team that looked good on paper but hadn’t, you know, played together never gelled. This team once viewed as a Finals contender will almost certainly fail to make even the Play-In Tournament.
It’s good the Sixers have shut Embiid down. They have a top-six protected pick, and so losing games, and trying to maximize the odds their first rounder in a historically loaded draft doesn’t go to the Oklahoma City Thunder, is very smart.
It also may ultimately not matter much.
If Embiid cannot return to regular and reliable greatness, if PG’s contract turns out to be an albatross instead of an answer, then all the other details — Maxey’s promise, the injured Jared McCain‘s early season emergence, Morey’s undoubtedly impressive basketball brain — may be details of a still-sinking ship.
Gamblers win. But they also lose, too, sometimes catastrophically. And this Sixers organization is looking more and more like a good idea gone bad — a smart bet, in the end, that will perhaps cost everything.
