It’s understandable to be frustrated after an abysmal season. But when you think about things rationally, now wasn’t the time to make changes to the front office or coaching staff.
Imagine being dealt good cards in a game of poker. You like the two cards you’re holding and you feel good about your chances to win the hand before seeing the flop. The flop comes out and all of a sudden, your chances of winning the hand have greatly diminished.
There’s a good chance you overvalued the strength of your hand pre-flop, but the flop only lowered your chances of success. The cost of staying in the hand after the flop is not exorbitant, and there’s still a chance, albeit a somewhat slim chance, that the turn or river cards enable you to win the hand.
Would you stay in the hand to at least see the turn or would you fold?
This is basically the position the Sixers were in at the end of the 2024-25 season. Did they overvalue how good of a roster they might have had entering the year? Perhaps a little. As the season played out, it became clear that their roster was not going to be able to withstand the seemingly always ascending number of injuries they were saddled with. But, most of the important players are still under contract for next season.
The opportunity still exists, however unlikely it may be, for a turnaround to take place. Next year’s roster shouldn’t have as much injury bad luck as this year’s roster dealt with. The front office will also have an offseason to add more depth that might make it easier to endure whatever injuries take place next season. If you’re reading this and becoming skeptical, that’s more than understandable.
But, it’s important to realize that the Sixers were already pot-committed on this hand of poker. Extending Joel Embiid and signing Paul George last summer were strong pre-flop bets by Daryl Morey. He felt that having both players to go with Tyrese Maxey, who was also extended last summer, as the franchise’s trio of stars was the franchise’s best shot at a championship. Frankly, I don’t think many fans disagreed with him last summer either.
It probably would not be wise to reroute the entire direction of the franchise with more changes to the front office and coaching staff. Sam Hinkie drafted Embiid and Brett Brown was the first coach Embiid played for in the NBA. Approximately every three years since Hinkie’s hiring in May 2013, there has been a change to either the front office or head coach of the Sixers. Nurse has coached the Sixers for just two seasons. While Morey just finished up his fifth season as the Sixers President of Basketball Operations, what sense does it make to have a new executive come in now who would be hamstrung thanks to the big contracts Morey gave out last summer?
Regardless of how you feel about the likelihood of Embiid and George remaining healthy enough to live up to their contracts, the reality is that both players still have a lot of term left on their contracts. Embiid is signed thru the 2028-29 season and George is locked up until the 2027-28 season concludes. To be 100% accurate, the 2027-28 season is a player option for George but we all know he’s not going to do better than the $56 million he’s slated to make in 2027-28 provided he opts in.
Not only would a new executive likely be turned off by being tied down to these big contracts, but there are some outstanding first-round draft pick debts that the Sixers still owe to other teams that would also rebuff any strong lead executive candidate. By now, everyone probably knows about the debt Philadelphia owes to Oklahoma City in the first-round of either this year or next year’s draft. If the Sixers stay in the top six of this year’s draft, they’ll owe the Thunder a top-four protected first-rounder next year. The reason this debt exists is because one of Morey’s first moves after taking over the Sixers in 2020 was to shed Al Horford’s contract. The Thunder were willing to take on the Horford contract as long as Morey gave them the first-rounder that they now control.
Should the Sixers hold on to this year’s first-round pick and push back giving Oklahoma City the first-rounder by one year, they will owe Brooklyn a top-eight protected first-round pick in 2028 as the final condition of the Ben Simmons-James Harden trade three years ago. This of course was another one of Morey’s signature moves. So not only would a new executive be saddled with the big contracts Morey gave out, but said executive would also have to deal with draft pick debts thanks to some of Morey’s trades, making it difficult to rebuild.
Now that we’ve established the Sixers are already locked into Embiid, George, Maxey and probably Jared McCain even though he’s on a rookie deal, for the foreseeable future, are you really going to find a better coach than Nurse to try to return to contention next season? The Raptors have faded into irrelevance since winning a championship with Nurse. Additionally, I think most Sixers fans would approve of the job Nurse did in 2023-24. Nurse had to navigate some rather chummy waters in 2023-24 with a roster of mostly expiring contracts given Morey was set to go on a spending spree in the summer of 2024. Of course, Embiid’s current knee problems began in 2023-24 as well. Nurse still got the Sixers into the playoffs and had them competing until the bitter end of a back-and-forth series in the first round against New York.
What message does it send to potential coaching candidates that the last guy made the playoffs in his first season, had to play the most starting lineup combinations in NBA history in his second season and then got fired? The Sixers are simply in too deep on this group of top-end talent and it’s going to define Morey’s tenure as the team’s president. Morey’s 2024 offseason was rife with cap space and he hitched his wagon to Embiid, Maxey and George by giving them all huge contracts.
If the next few seasons are even close to 2024-25, Morey will be fired, Nurse will go with him, and by then the writing will be on the wall for a full-scaled rebuild with George and Embiid’s contracts nearing expiration. At that point, it will be time for a new hand of poker. But for now, there’s no better choice than to see the turn and river cards.