The Philadelphia 76ers season hasn’t gone according to plan. But the team isn’t ready to punt on this season yet. Sixers leadership still thinks they have an elite team when healthy.
“I would say that, again, we always start with trying to build elite teams,” 76ers governor Josh Harris told The Athletic. “We started this season with two potential Hall of Famers, and one All-Star. We were very excited about the season. Obviously, it’s been a disappointing season. No one’s happy with where we are. We’re not happy. I go to a lot of games. We want to be winning and creating the contending team that we’ve had over the last five years. The injuries haven’t helped us. The elite team we had hasn’t been on the court more than seven games, where they started and finished the game. We won six of seven of those. I think we got it right.
“But what’s happened is, obviously, Joel hasn’t played a lot. He’s the lynchpin of the whole thing. When he doesn’t play, the pressure comes on Paul, and it comes on Tyrese. And Tyrese has had to carry a lot of the load, and, in some cases, Paul has had to carry a lot of the load. And people have had to do things that they weren’t necessarily prepared for.”
Harris also said that the team will take a few more weeks to figure out their direction for the remainder of the season.
“So, the next few weeks are important, what happens there,” Harris said. “We’re going to see what happens there and make a good decision. And we’ll audible at that point, and we’ll find the right spot. We have a great front office. Nick Nurse won an NBA title. Unfortunately, we ran into that that year. Daryl (Morey) and Elton (Brand) are good at what they do. We’re honest. Give us a few weeks to answer that question. We’re going to react to that.”