For the Sixers, ego concerns are secondary to Jaylen Brown and Joel Embiid’s fit on the court
While it would be easy to sit here and wonder about Embiid’s thoughts on all of the hoopla surrounding Brown, the much more relevant question concerns their coexistence on the court.
There are two sets of questions for these 76ers. Maybe it feels like that’s always been the case. Except that it hasn’t.
The questions used to be: Will Joel Embiid be healthy? How often? To what extent? At what level of effectiveness? Nothing beyond these things mattered. Without Embiid, the Sixers weren’t a team you could even pretend to take seriously.
Things aren’t what they used to be. With or without Embiid, the Sixers feel like they have a team that will have an identity. More than that, they feel like they have a team that will have a chance. If they didn’t make that clear when it traded for Jaylen Brown, they certainly did when they formally introduced him.
» READ MORE: Jaylen Brown vows to earn ‘trust and respect’ from the Sixers and his new basketball community
The only things missing from Thursday’s press conference at Francis J. Myers Recreation Center in Southwest Philly were a marching band and a vice-presidential nominee. Upward of 100 people packed themselves into the rows of plastic folding chairs that covered most of the width of the rec center’s indoor court and three-quarters of its length.
In addition to the ownership group and most of the front office and Brown’s family and reporters from both Philly and Boston, there were cheerleaders and game day event staffers and security guards and a DJ and a gaggle of youth from the local community.
While it was Brown who keenly requested that the event be held at a local rec center, the proceedings were just as much a show of force from the Sixers that left little room for doubt about the gravity they expect their newly acquired superstar to impart on the organization.
“What an event,” Sixers first-year president of basketball operations Mike Gansey said. “It’s a special, special day to be a Seventy-Sixer.”
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While it would be easy to sit here and wonder about Embiid’s thoughts on all of the hoopla surrounding Brown, the much more relevant question concerns their coexistence on the court. Feelings? Sure. Everyone has them. But they require political capital to matter. For much of his tenure, the Sixers adhered to a doctrine of appeasement. Several different front offices and coaching staffs operated as if they lived in fear of a trade demand. Now, the Sixers couldn’t trade Embiid if they wanted. Both sides are surely aware of that.
Besides, we’ve seen and heard plenty to suggest that Embiid is at the very least receptive to having another superstar on board. On Thursday, Brown said that the Sixers center reached out to him shortly after the trade went down. The team has an active group chat. Yes, LeBron James is a part of it.
“Me and Joel have been friends throughout the years,” Brown said. “I love soccer, so we talk about that a lot. He reached out, too, when I got traded. He reached out the same day. I talked to him on the phone. I’m looking forward to earning everybody’s trust and respect and grinding and impacting winning. That’s what I’ve done my whole career, and that’s what I plan on doing here.”
That’s all that counts in the chemistry department, for the time being. Even if Brown and Embiid have some aspects of their personalities that make you wonder about the occasional friction, the decade of close quarters competition between the two has generally revealed a healthy mutual respect. The two players shared a long one-on-one moment near midcourt in the aftermath of the Sixers’ win over the Celtics in Game 7 of April’s first-round playoff series. The two most important personality traits in any professional relationship are to mean well and to want to win the task at hand. Both Brown and Embiid have those fundamentals. That’s enough for now.
The success and failure of the Brown-Embiid partnership will be determined by how well it works on the court. That, in turn, will determine whether the Sixers have the potential to become a truly great team. Brown and Embiid are both the ceiling and the floor. Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe both have the skill profile and willingness to adapt their roles to those around him. James did it even in his prime. Now, he is at an age where one generally accepts who he needs to be. The big question marks are Brown and Embiid.
This isn’t a question of personality as much as it is a question of technical fit. There are a lot of parallels between Brown and Embiid, at least from a critical perspective. Shot selection, tunnel vision, decision-making, possession time, efficiency, pace in the half court, all have offered ample fodder for skeptics. Of the 20 players with a usage rate of at least 29% over the last eight seasons, only two have averaged fewer than four assists per game. You guessed it. Embiid and Brown.
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Whether or not these criticisms are prescient or fair, Brown and Embiid are clearly the two players who have the potential to clunk the operation up to a point of dysfunction. Don’t interpret that as a disservice to either. It’s just the style of their games. Whether the Sixers reach their ceiling will depend overwhelmingly on how well Brown and Embiid adapt their games to what optimizes the collective. Each has the ability to be the player they need to be. It is not a complicated thing. Drive when you have a lane. Shoot when you have a shot. Otherwise, keep the ball moving.
“To win, you’ve got to be able to have sacrifice,” Brown said. “You’ve got to be able to have communication.”
The presence of James as a connector and secondary playmaker should help. So, too, should the presence of Maxey and Edgecombe, two of the more likable, earnest and adaptable young players in the game. But if we are going to assume that Embiid’s outlook is as promising as the reports suggest, the Sixers’ fate will ultimately be determined by his synergy with Brown.
It’s a great question to have.
