Brown Can Finally Coach
After years of troubleshooting, patching roster holes, and “making do”, it’s nearly impossible to perceive the team this season falling into a pattern even remotely similar to previous seasons.
If the team had only Joel Embiid arriving at center, there would still be concerns about the back court.
If the team had only addressed the back court in free agency, there would still be concerns about the health of Joel Embiid and the likelihood of whether Dario Saric would ever arrive.
Air Alamo
If the team had only announced the debuts of red-shirted players Joel Embiid and Dario Saric, the fanbase would be locked into the wishful thinking of what might have been had the team landed the first pick of the 2016 NBA Draft and landed the talk of the NBA in Ben Simmons.
But all of these events, diminished in their luminescence only from the fact that they are all shining together in unison, have happened, and have changed the trajectory of the Philadelphia 76ers going forward.
The team, knowing it had to build a team around the strengths of Simmons, did so. No, the “splash” factor never truly happened. No big name free agent arrived in Philadelphia, and that’s okay. What did arrive in terms of free agents are veterans who fit like a glove in Brown’s vision of Pace, Space and Pass.
The 76ers ended the 2015-2016 season by averaging 100.8 points over the last ten games of the season. That was a team without leading scorer Jahlil Okafor. The Philadelphia 76ers roster, as it stands, and average that score over the course of the season this year. If they manage to do so, they would project at about the 22nd offense in the league, and would project with approximately 30 wins next year.
Next: Philadelphia 76ers' Core: Ultimate Roster Analysis and Predictions
There’s no magic or voodoo about this. The team simply needs to focus on improving a basic fundamental level of statistics, and the wins should take care of themselves. With the influx of new faces, and huge surge in talent potential, success will not come as sparingly as it had before.
It was all part of the process.