After entering the season with title hopes, the Philadelphia 76ers have looked like anything but a future champion this season. Their record is undoubtedly a disappointment with the team just 15-24, 11th in the East. However, most people have realized that\u2019s largely a byproduct of their inability to stay off the injury report.<\/p>\n
Sixers face of the franchise Joel Embiid<\/a> is combatting a nagging knee injury<\/a>, which has limited him to just 13 games. Paul George<\/a>, who was their biggest acquisition last summer<\/a>, has played just 27 games. Jared McCain<\/a> only suited up for 23 games before his Rookie of the Year campaign came to an end<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ahead of their matchup against the Indiana Pacers, Sixers head coach Nick Nurse found the perfect words to sum up his team\u2019s 2024-25 campaign:<\/p>\n \u201cSurvival mode.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe’ve been on survival mode and doing the best we can<\/a> with who’s available,\u201d Nurse tells reporters (h\/t Indianapolis Star reporter Dustin Dopirak). \u201cThat’s been the story of the first half of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n As previously stated, Philadelphia has been bitten hard by the injury bug. On the one hand, that doesn\u2019t completely excuse their dismal record. Just consider that the upstart Orlando Magic are 23-20 despite Paolo Banchero<\/a> and Franz Wagner<\/a> playing 34 games combined.<\/p>\n However, Nurse has never had to maneuver around the absences of key players this frequently. He\u2019s been thrown for a loop, leading to him throwing everything but the kitchen sink at teams. For example, due to Embiid and Andre Drummond<\/a>\u2019s absences, he\u2019s even had George playing center (much to his chagrin<\/a>).<\/p>\n Perhaps Nurse would\u2019ve still inserted George at the 5 at some point just as a wrinkle. When it\u2019s what he feels he has to do out of necessity though, that\u2019s an act of desperation. Or, as Nurse says, a survival tactic.<\/p>\n Entering the season, the Sixers\u2019 depth was supposed to be a strongpoint. They were already aware that the injury-prone Embiid and George were going to miss some games. In fact, they planned on preventing them from playing in back-to-backs<\/a>.<\/p>\n What they didn\u2019t anticipate was having to lean on them so heavily. To that point, Drummond has already started in 14 games this season, his highest total since 2021-22. Guerschon Yabusele<\/a> has started in 18 games after entering the season with five career starts.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, Sixers president Daryl Morey was shrewd in deciding to sign Drummond and Yabusele as backups. George might not want to play center but he\u2019s among the better rebounders at his nominal position and has an 8-foot-11 standing reach. KJ Martin<\/a>, who they re-signed in the offseason, can play the position in spurts. Then there\u2019s rookie Adem Bona<\/a>, the 41st pick in the 2024 NBA Draft.<\/p>\n By having so many rotation-caliber centers, Nurse has a lot of combinations he can put together to help keep them afloat. In fact, they\u2019re tied for 14th in post-up defense, surrendering 0.96 points per possession. However, the Sixers are still last in rebounds per game (39.5), last in pick-and-roll roll man defense (1.28 PPP), 27th in blocks per game (4.2).<\/p>\n They really do need<\/em> Embiid healthy.<\/p>\n The Sixers might also want to find a starting-caliber player to replace Kelly Oubre Jr.<\/a> in the starting lineup. Though he can often make a positive impact at both ends, he\u2019s shooting a dismal 27.5 percent from deep. With George, Embiid, and Tyrese Maxey<\/a> all looking to find their touch from distance, he\u2019s compounding a very real issue.<\/p>\n This season, the Sixers rank just 20th in three-point attempts (36.1) and 25th in three-point percentage (.342), which is among the reasons they\u2019re 27th in points per game (107.6). Yet, when teams don\u2019t have the talent to match up with their opponent is when the three-ball is particularly useful. Right now, they don\u2019t even have that<\/em> weapon in their safe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After entering the season with title hopes, the Philadelphia 76ers have looked like anything but a future champion this season. Their record is undoubtedly a disappointment with the team just 15-24, 11th in the East. However, most people have realized that\u2019s largely a byproduct of their inability to stay off the injury report. Sixers face […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":118852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,1608,62,3],"tags":[341,797,267,1315,4745,1612,50],"class_list":["post-118821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-76ers","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-andre-drummond","tag-guerschon-yabusele","tag-joel-embiid","tag-kelly-oubre-jr","tag-nba-injuries","tag-nick-nurse","tag-paul-george"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118821"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118854,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118821\/revisions\/118854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Survival Mode: Sixers\u2019 Season Summed Up<\/h2>\n
Daryl Morey\u2019s Moves<\/h3>\n
There\u2019s One More Problem<\/h3>\n