Without Simmons Or Embiid, The Sixers Are No Different Than The Cavs

If we learn only one lesson, this should be it.

[photo: Jason Miller / Getty Images]

Andrew Unterberger is a famous writer who invented the nickname 'Sauce Castillo' and is now writing for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey As Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard. 

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Because Sixers fans can never find enough things to get angry about, a percentage of those brave enough to stick around for the rest of the Cavs-Sixers game last night after Joel Embiid went out with a [real injury TK] sounded off in a familiar refrain: They should still be beating this team. 

In theory, there probably should be something to that. The Sixers went into this season with championship aspirations, and a starting lineup of five guys who could look like at least potential borderline All-Stars if you squinted the right way. Certainly, Josh Harris and buds are paying this team like a squad who should be able to weather the loss of any two players and still be able to handle a 17-41 roster. Ideally, you next-man-up your way through the injuries, your third and fourth options take on a little more volume, and you figure out a way to beat a team of mixed-bag prospects and sourpussed veterans whose coach just quit at the All-Star break rather than finish out his first year.

There’s a problem with that though, and it’s this: Without Embiid or Ben Simmons, the Sixers don’t actually have anyone who’s anywhere near deserving of All-Star status. Without Embiid or Simmons, “team of mixed-bag prospects and sourpussed veterans” also applies to the Sixers -- and their coach might not be much longer for this world than John Beilein. Without Embiid or Simmons -- and props to former RTRS guest Jason Blevins for being the first to voice this on Twitter last night -- there really is no major difference between the Sixers and the Cavaliers.

I mean, think about it: Why should you really consider a core of Al Horford, Tobias Harris and Josh Richardson to be any more formidable at this point than one of Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson and Collin Sexton? Love and Thompson were also once the third- and fourth-best players on the Cavs, and for a team that accomplished a whole of a lot more than these Sixers have thus far. Collin Sexton has been legitimately potent on offense, averaging over 22 a game on good shooting the past month -- and even if he’s still a major minus on defense, that’s still consistency on one more side of the ball than J-Rich can currently claim. Alec Burks and Glenn Robinson III, a sparkling combined 5-27 from three since coming to Philly, aren’t exactly tipping the balances here. Throw in the Sixers’ now-9-and-21 road record, and you’d have to be more optimistic than the team’s medical staff evaluating a tweaked back to like these guys’ chances in anyone else’s building sans Ben and JoJo.

Now you may read all this and still want to say: OK, yeah… but a team that’s paying two guys a combined $289 million dollars should be able to ask them to carry a game against one of the worst teams in the NBA!

And to this I say: absolutely correct. Ideally, the Sixers should be able to ask two guys making more money combined than Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton to go out and get you a win against a lottery squad. That would be great! That’s why most teams, traditionally speaking, tend to award their most exorbitant contracts to players who are among the league’s best; the kind who can step up to fill a production void when one emerges. Sadly, this was not the Sixers’ strategy this offseason: Instead, they spent their free agency cash on a good player who has never been great, and a formerly great player who was about to turn into something less than good. 

Unsurprisingly, the Tobias part of this bothers me more than the Horford part. I’m still not sure exactly what’s happening with the latter -- yell about fit and expenditure of resources and kink-shaming all you want, but the guy who played on the Celtics the last four years was miles ahead of the guy we see now. Even the guy who played on the Sixers for the first month of the season was prime David Robinson compared to this scrub. I don’t know if the couple games Horf missed for knee soreness in December portended nagging issues that we’re only going to hear about at the end of the season, or if his age just hit him all at once once he turned 33 and a half, or if playing in Philly when he is so clearly not #FromHere is just sucking out his will to live. But point is, even if it was a bad signing for chemistry and floor balance reasons -- and even if he was about to turn into modern-day Billy Corgan -- at least they were signing a player with a proven track record of All-Star play and winning.

Harris, on the other hand… I mean, even ignore the Shamet and picks trade that boxed us in to resigning him, and just look at the contract: $180 million for a guy that never has been and almost certainly never will be an All-Star. You can survive that when you’re certain you’re never going to ever ask him to be more than a third or fourth option, but ask him to step into a bigger role and you’re trying to make him something he isn’t -- and outside of a couple good months with the Clippers last season, never has been. It was a contract that only could have worked if everything else went right, and knowing the way things have generally gone for the Process Sixers, that was probably never the prudent play. 

If this time without Embiid and Simmons, however long it ends up being, does nothing else for us as Sixers fans, I hope it at least allows us to be honest about who Harris and Horford are as players in this point in their careers. No, Horford hasn’t been put in the best position to succeed on this Sixers team, but the real problem with him since December hasn’t been that he hasn’t fit -- it’s been that he’s played bad basketball, straight up. Yes, Harris has been pretty good on average this season, but the reason why he hasn’t been a consistently reliable source on offense isn’t because he struggles in the half-court alongside Embiid, or because he should be a full-time four -- it’s because he’s not a great player, and not-great players go through periods of struggle and inefficiency with their production. Horford and Harris aren’t actual max players, they just play them on the Sixers. 

And you know what the crazy thing is? If Embiid and Simmons can actually get healthy in time, it’s possible none of this even really matters. The Sixers, currently in fifth place, would still love to make up ground in the standings, but in a worst-case scenario are basically insulated against falling any lower in the standings than sixth: They have ten wins more than the seventh-place Nets and eighth-place Magic, neither of whom look like a team with plans of even winning another ten games the rest of this season. Given the prospective matchups, the Sixers might even prefer to fall from five to six, get the Celtics in the first round and avoid the Bucks until the conference finals. And hell, the teams around them on either side of the playoff race are in practical freefall anyway -- both the fourth-place Heat and sixth-place Pacers are 3-7 in their last ten, with the former losing last night at home to the KAT-less Timberwolves. Maybe Simmons and Embiid could both miss six to eight weeks and return to find nothing much having changed in the standings. 

More importantly, Embiid and Simmons are good enough that when they’re playing at their highest level, the team can get away with having overpaid and occasionally underqualified third and fourth options, and still be able to compete with most teams -- maybe all teams. They haven’t shown that every night this season, by any means, but we’ve seen how high the ceiling is, with wins in the bank over every true contender already (unless, I suppose, you count the Rockets). Get them both healthy and engaged in the playoffs, and we might not be favorites against most teams -- particularly starting each series on the road -- but we’ll at least have a chance against anyone. That’s the luxury of having superstars. 

But if one can’t make it back in time? Well, with a couple breaks and a herculean performance from the guy left, we could possibly still squeak out a series, but the window of surpassing last-year’s second-round exit would have essentially shut. And if both can’t make it back? Well, we may as well be sending out Darius Garland and Ante Zizic to play 30 minutes each for us, because what’s left of the Sixers without Jo and Ben isn’t any more of a playoff team than any of the rosters full of dudes who have already started dreaming about lottery balls in June.