The Mike Gansey era has begun. Where do the Sixers go from here?
Mike Gansey didn't say much in his first remarks as the Sixers' president of basketball operations. That might actually be for the best.
Really, there wasn’t anything that Mike Gansey could have said that would have changed the expectations for the 76ers.
Which is good, because he didn’t say much.
Gansey’s first news conference as the 76ers’ president of basketball operations offered little in the way of detail about the team’s path forward. He acknowledged that Joel Embiid and Paul George are players who are currently on the Sixers roster. He noted that Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe are, too. He explained that he and his front office will attempt to select the best possible player with the No. 22 pick in the NBA draft later this month. You could say Gansey’s plan was short on specifics, except there weren’t many generalities, either.
“I just got here,” the 43-year-old Ohio native and longtime Cleveland Cavaliers personnel man said at one point while prefacing one of his comments.
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All of this was to be expected. Smart, even. There is some short-term value a new hire can reap from winning the first news conference. But it often is outweighed by potential long-term damage he can sow. Look at Gansey’s three immediate predecessors. Each was haunted, even undone, by the narrative they sold at the outset.
Sam Hinkie’s biggest problem wasn’t The Process itself. It was his explicit acknowledgment of it. Daryl Morey was ultimately defined by his unabashed and steadfast belief in the power of veteran superstars rather than his draft night successes. In between was Bryan Colangelo, who went all-in for Markelle Fultz as the Sixers launched a Welcome to the Moment marketing campaign.
There were no slogans from Gansey on Monday. The surest sign that the Sixers have entered a new era is that we have no clue what it will look like. For more than a decade, the team has conducted its day-to-day business within the framework of a grand and easily articulated strategic vision. The Morey/Colangelo years were as well-defined a process as Hinkie’s capital-P Process years. Jimmy Butler, Tobias Harris, James Harden, George, every veteran backup center who used to be an All-Star. Star hunting, in the mortally immortal words of Brett Brown.
Gansey, meanwhile, explained his vision only in the broadest, most abstract terms. He spoke of a desire to create “alignment” throughout the organization and remarked that he expected that he and coach Nick Nurse would be “attached at the hip.” On a couple of occasions, Gansey said he wanted to build an organization with people who are “fountains, not drains.”
“We’ve got to do the work, you know?” Gansey said. “Obviously, draft coming up, for example, you’re talking to plenty of coaches, people that have been around these guys, and you want to bring in good people here. If they don’t want to be here, or you don’t feel they can fit with our culture, then we don’t want it. We want people that want to be in Philadelphia and we want guys that — I want competitiveness. I want toughness. I want guys that hate to lose. Those are the kind of people I’m going to try and target and want to bring onto this roster.”
The first part of that comment is the important part. The Sixers have no magic bullet to shoot nor rabbit to pull. They likely are going to need to build a team the old-fashioned way. With Embiid and George under contract at roughly $115 million per year combined for the next two seasons, the most the Sixers can spend in free agency is $15 million (via the nontaxpayer mid-level exception) plus minimum-level contracts.
“I don’t look at it as a timeline,” Gansey said. “I just look at like we have those four and we got to maximize those four. Obviously, VJ and Tyrese are younger, but Paul and Joel can still play at a high level. We were 24-14 when Joel played, and obviously the playoffs coming back from Boston. Like, we got to rely on those four and obviously keep [them] on the floor and then just build around them.”
The important work over these next couple of seasons could look a lot like the roster grind Gansey helped preside over during his time with the Cavaliers, when he was Cleveland’s point man on the draft and related talent. Two rotation members from this year’s Eastern Conference finals team were Dean Wade, signed as an undrafted free agent in 2019, and Sam Merrill, initially signed to a 10-day contract in 2023. A third, Jaylon Tyson, was selected at No. 20 overall two years ago.
» READ MORE: Mike Gansey plans to build around Sixers’ current core while growing the team’s culture
One of the shrewder value plays swung by Cavs president Koby Altman during Gansey’s time with the team was the signing of restricted free agent Lauri Markkanen to a four-year, $67 million contract via a three-way sign-and-trade with the Cavs and Chicago Bulls. One year later, the Cavs made Markkenen the centerpiece of a trade package (along with three firsts and two pick swaps) that landed them star guard Donovan Mitchell. Two years later, Markkanen signed a five-year max contract extension with the Jazz.
The most intriguing variable in the Sixers’ strategic decision-making is a competitive landscape that could be on the verge of shifting dramatically in the favor of teams such as theirs. In the new framework, a team that narrowly misses the playoffs would have better lottery odds than the four worst teams in the league, meaning the Sixers won’t have much of an incentive to bottom out or blow it up to maximize their chances of a successful rebuild.
The dominant operating strategy for the next few years would seem to be playing it smart but honest: prioritize the three-to-five-year-plan while making this year’s team as good as possible within the constraints. The Eastern Conference landscape likely will get a lot tougher next season. With Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton returning to the 2024-25 Eastern Conference champs and Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum fully recovered from Achilles surgery, the East should have at least three teams (including the New York Knicks) well out of reach of the Sixers.
That doesn’t include the Detroit Pistons or the Cavs, both of whom have a 60-win season within the last two years. Nor does it include the Miami Heat, who are a perpetual threat to shake up the offseason, especially with a Giannis Antetokounmpo trade lurking. Meanwhile, the Atlanta Hawks and Charlotte Hornets ended the season on runs of 26-11 and 28-12. Factor in a talented Orlando Magic roster that underperformed in 2026, and the Sixers easily could enter the season as the eighth- or ninth-best team on paper, regardless of what they do this offseason.
“We’ve got to find an identity,” said Bob Myers, the longtime Golden State Warriors executive who hired Gansey and will work in conjunction with him as president of sports at Sixers parent company, Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment. “We just don’t have one.”
At this point, there isn’t much else to say.
