For the Sixers, Joel Embiid’s future is a secondary concern compared to VJ Edgecombe’s
Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe are players the Sixers are looking to band truck, still where Embiid fits into all of this remains to be seen.
Joel Embiid is no longer the answer for the Sixers.
But he isn’t the question, either.
A lot of people are failing to grasp the second aspect. Their mental framework is still centered around Embiid. The firing of Daryl Morey, the hiring of Bob Myers, the conspicuous absence of any vote of confidence in Embiid from ownership or (interim) management. All of it begs a question that many assume dominate the agenda of the new personnel regime.
What do the Sixers do with Embiid?
It is a fair question. It’s also the wrong one. Whoever Myers ends up hiring as the Sixers’ day-to-day personnel boss, whatever title that person ends up having, he can’t afford to center any of his decision-making around Embiid. The Sixers’ focus must be singular. There is one question that matters.
How do we build a roster that can contend for a title while centered around two players like Tyrese Maxey as he is today, and what VJ Edgecombe might one day be?
There’s your prime mover. All other decision-making must flow from it. The only question about Embiid is one that was already answered unequivocally this season. How should the Sixers factor him into their plans? Easy. They shouldn’t. The basketball Gods threw them a lifeline after smiting them for nearly a decade. Morey and his staff were wise enough to grab it.
Where other alleged experts saw the top of last year’s draft as a two-horse race, the Sixers saw a third. Edgecombe wasn’t a sure-fire future generational star like Cooper Flagg, nor did he have the combination of polish, skill and physique that made Dylan Harper an immediate championship-caliber starter and future leading man. But he had the attributes to be something that Kon Knueppel didn’t: a guy who could be the guy around whom you build the supporting cast.
Ironically, it was Embiid who gave the most meaningful endorsement of the concept.
“He’s the guy,” Embiid said after the Sixers’ season ended with a sweep by the Knicks. “I think, I’m telling you guys, that guy is something different. And this was only year one, and this was only year one, year two is gonna be better, year three, even better, but he has a chance to be extremely special.”
Edgecombe isn’t there yet. Not even close. But the mere potential should be enough to carry the Sixers and their fan base through these next two or three sunk cost seasons. Only a lack of imagination would lead one to the conclusion that the Sixers are drawing dead by building around a couple of guards. That is the legitimate parallel between them and Myers’ old Warriors teams, if there is one.
David Murphy alerts
The most relevant part of Myers’ resume is a simple factoid.
Over the last 15 seasons, exactly eight teams have made the NBA Finals with two guards averaging 14+ shot attempts per game. Five of those teams were the Warriors, where Myers was president and general manager.
There are lots of different ways to build a championship contender. One of them is to luck into a physical unicorn like Flagg or Victor Wembanyama or LeBron James. Embiid had the potential to be such a player. But you can do yourself a world of damage by excluding all other options.
This year’s NBA Finals could feature a couple of teams that are led by a couple of guards in Jalen Brunson and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who were viewed as disposable by the teams that drafted them. To get there, Brunson’s Knicks will need to beat a team whose two primary scorers are a couple of guards, one of whom is 36 years old and well past his prime.
Maxey and Edgecombe are not Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. But they showed more than enough this season for the Sixers to think that they can build a contending roster around them.
Those who don’t see it are underestimating what they saw out of Edgecombe. They are underestimating the massive physiological and developmental leaps that young players typically make in their first few seasons.
“He works too hard, and he wants it too much,” Maxey said. “You can’t ask for anything better than that, and the city should really just rally behind it and just be excited.”
Stardom is efficiency plus volume. The enticing thing about Edgecombe is that those two variables were positively correlated even as a rookie. That’s rare. His three highest volume games were also three of his most efficient. Two of them came in a four-day stretch in late March, when he scored a combined 73 points on 56 shots against the Kings and Thunder.
Expand the sample size and the trend is the same. In 10 games with at least 20 shot attempts, Edgecombe’s effective field goal percentage was .562, much better than his overall mark of .510. He averaged 27.8 points in those games.
Can he do that over 82 games? That’s asking a lot out of a guy in his second NBA season. But I do think he can regularly be some version of the guy he was in Game 2 against the Celtics in the playoffs. He won’t hit 6-of-10 from three-point range every night. But 3-of-8 from downtown and 6-of-12 from two-point range is reasonable. Factor in a couple of trips to the foul line, he — had none against the Celtics in Game 2, and you are looking at 24 to 25 points.
“Usually, guys improve quite a bit from year one to year two,” Sixers coach Nick Nurse said. “I would imagine with his work ethic and stuff, he’ll have a good summer.”
It’s not a stretch to think that an improved Edgecombe might’ve changed the trajectory of the Sixers’ series against the Knicks. He attempted just 13 shots in a 108-102 loss in Game 2. Two of those attempts were misses at the rim. In the Knicks 108-94 win in Game 3, Edgecombe attempted just nine shots and was 1-of-5 from three-point range.
The Cavs’ formula is size on the wings in Dean Wade and Evan Mobley and a rim-running, rim-protecting center in Jarrett Allen. It’s no surprise that, per Marc Stein, Cavaliers general manager Mike Gansey is a name to watch for the Sixers’ current opening.
Where Embiid fits into all of this remains to be seen. The Sixers only potential option for trading him would be heaping a bunch of valuable draft assets on a rebuilding team that can afford to carry $190 million over the next three years. Even that might be a stretch. Either way, they’d be foolish to sacrifice any future building blocks to part ways with Embiid. It cost them a first round pick to trade away Al Horford, who was the same player he’d been when they signed him.
Otherwise, the situation is what it is. The challenge for Nurse and the front office will be building a team without Embiid in mind that can also benefit whenever he is available to play. But, again, that’s a secondary consideration.
The primary goal right now is to figure out the blueprint and then build, build, build. Size on the wings. Athleticism at the five. A back-end of the rotation that can shoot, an end-of-the-bench that can develop. These are the objectives. With Embiid, the only way to take it is with the three words he knows better than anybody: day-to-day.
