Will This Be The Game That Broke The Process Sixers?
Did we just watch this all fall apart?
Mike O’Connor is the best O’Connor in basketball writing. Previously of The Athletic, you can find Mike on Twitter @MOConnor_NBA. Mike’s writing is brought to you by Body Bio, supplements based on science, focusing on your gut and brain health. Get 20% off E-Lyte and all Body Bio products with promo code RTRS20 at Body Bio’s website.
This was supposed to be a feel-good season for the Sixers. After a dizzying, bizarre, and demoralizing two seasons, all this team and its fanbase truly wanted was some stability, and they’d seemingly found it. Somehow, it seemed that the Sixers had finally returned to where they started three seasons ago in 2017-18 -- from up-and-coming fringe contender, to all-in contender, to failed superteam, and back again to up-and-coming fringe contender.
The Sixers built up a tremendous amount of positive momentum throughout this year. They hired a new coach who made some tactical changes that transformed their defense. Their franchise cornerstone rounded into the MVP-type player that everyone knew he could be. Their second best player reached his apex on defense, contending for Defensive Player of the Year. Their veteran role players provided consistency and leadership, while their younger role players provided flashes here and there that left fans excited for their futures. The entire season was a much-needed wave of good vibrations -- one that felt like an oasis in the desert for fans, after the exhausting madness of the previous two years. The team once again seemed to have an infrastructure in place that was guaranteed at least a few more 50+ win seasons with zero major changes.
All of that good will may have gone away in a matter of one game. Sure, one could point back to the poor performance in Game 4 as well, but Game 5 was different. This was an absolutely spectacular, all-time level collapse, with much higher stakes -- the type that, in my opinion, could permanently fracture the trust within a team, and necessitate wholesale changes.
All of that positive momentum. Ruined. In one game.
I hesitated to make such a declaration, in fear of being simply a prisoner of the moment. We all have a tendency to overreact and write off teams as needing blow-ups after a bad playoff loss. The Clippers are back in contention one year after a catastrophic collapse with mostly the same roster. The Spurs suffered the worst collapse ever in 2013, and won the championship the following year. Even lower down the totem pole, the Blazers have had some brutal losses over the past half-decade, and have always rebounded honorably with mostly the same core.
But this situation is different. It is unclear to me how a team could possibly run back this core again, even knowing that it would mean 50+ regular season wins, while knowing with absolute certainty that their $30 million point guard will get completely and utterly unmasked when it counts. The lingering certainty of it has passed a threshold to where the fans, the organization, and the locker room could tolerate having that thought in the back of everyone’s mind throughout another entire season -- that this is what it will look like in the playoffs. If they lose this series, the weight of that knowledge will be absolutely crushing.
The Clippers, Blazers, and Spurs didn’t have to live with that certainty. Their flaws weren’t necessarily based around the skill sets of their foundational players -- one could reasonably be talked into the stars simply needing a different supporting cast. The Spurs also had an infrastructure that included 15 years of trust to fall back on, built on the basis of four NBA championships. All the Sixers have is a couple of underwhelming second round exits.
Many underwhelming playoff teams can decide to re-up year after year because they can reasonably believe that their flaws were based on an esoteric chemistry issue rather than a foundational roster issue -- take the Lob City Clippers, or the Westbrook-Durant Thunder, for example. With the Sixers, the cause of their playoff disappointment is staring them right in the face.
Those Clippers teams could reasonably fool themselves into thinking that this year will be different. The Sixers cannot, as long as Ben Simmons is the lead ball handler. The weight of that is likely insurmountable.
That is true not just of the braintrust of the organization, but also within the locker room. How is Joel Embiid supposed to have any degree of confidence in Ben Simmons after this? How can he want to endure another grind of a season, knowing that this is what’s awaiting from his co-star at the end? While Embiid is playing on one leg and putting up big numbers, Simmons is absolutely nowhere to be found with what we must assume is a perfectly healthy body.
There is often a level of naivety among some fans about the complexities of this situation. It is not simply a matter of Embiid or Simmons hashing things out; there will be powerful people in both of their ears trying to convince them that they are better off without the other. Embiid is repped by CAA, Simmons by Klutch. You can bet that both of those rival agencies are watching this series and feeling that their respective clients would be better off separate. And are they wrong?
Combine the frustration that Embiid and Simmons are likely feeling internally, with the media frenzy that will ensue, and the conversations that are likely to be had in their inner circles, and I don’t see how this doesn’t lead to a breakup. Neither party, nor the Sixers’ organization, can withstand the weight of this type of performance.
It is possible that the Sixers will rebound and win the series. Even with these ghastly performances from Simmons, the Sixers are better than the Hawks. They absolutely should have won both of the previous two games regardless of his poor play. Even if they do win the series, I would argue their bed has been made. Should they rebound to beat the Hawks, and then bow out respectfully against the Nets, they should still trade Simmons.
I’m simply not sure that Ben Simmons experience is something that the organization can afford to go through once again given the history, the internal and external pressure, and the downright embarrassment that this series has brought and will likely continue to bring. The threshold has been crossed to where the weight of it all is no longer viable to bear. Barring the acquisition of another star and the complete and total buy-in of Simmons to not be the lead ball handler -- which seems impossible -- there is absolutely no way that one could go into next season and believe that things will be different. A breakup is necessary barring those circumstances, and when we look back on this era, we will look to this game as the definitive moment that spelled the end of the Joel Embiid-Ben Simmons Sixers.