The Philadelphia 76ers — fraudulent, unserious contenders — lost in seven games to the Atlanta Hawks, a good team that has no business in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Sixers shot themselves in the foot time and time again, blowing big leads and cracking under pressure.
Now another offseason of mystery awaits. More big change is imperative, and most fans already have a name or two in mind. This is when Daryl Morey gets put to the test. He pulled the Sixers out of a bad place in year one, but now he has to elevate them to the level of other contenders. The Sixers cannot fail Joel Embiid again.
Here’s what needs to change.
What must change for the Sixers next season: Ben Simmons
The time has come. Ben Simmons melted under the pressure against Atlanta, and there’s no way Philadelphia can, in good faith, run it back. Simmons still has value and is still a tremendous basketball player, but the Hawks clearly got under his skin, and he could not escape his own mental prison in the series’ final four games.
Philadelphia has to make major foundational change once again. Embiid needs another high-end perimeter creator who can run the offense effectively and share his burden late in games. Simmons cannot provide that, and he was too egregiously unplayable in this series to ever step in front of the Philly faithful again. This may be a slight overreaction on the logical scale, and the Sixers could try to bring in guard help next to Simmons, but no one in that city wants Ben on the team. That’s a tough position to be in.
He is one of the best defenders on the planet and a good number of teams would be smart to pursue him. He can still impact winning at a high, high level. But, in Philadelphia, with how this roster is built, he simply cannot stay.
Fire up that trade machine.
What must change for the Sixers next season: Fire Doc Rivers
This will not happen because Rivers signed a lucrative long-term contract last season, and ownership will not want to spend $20+ million in dead money just to hire another coach. That said, the Sixers’ early exit rests largely on the shoulders of Doc Rivers. In fact, I would argue he was far more detrimental than even Ben Simmons in the Sixers’ defeat.
You cannot go 10-deep in Game 7, especially when your bench is a tire fire with 2-3 playable players who, even then, are better judged game-to-game. The Dwight Howard minutes were unacceptable. The Tobias-plus-four bench player groups were unacceptable. Going to Shake Milton in the fourth quarter, and to close the game, after he has been terrible in all but one (1) quarter this postseason, is unacceptable. Doc’s rotation stubbornness and unearned trust in his players, while Atlanta went barely eight-deep, is part of why the Hawks will face the Bucks Wednesday night.
Rivers did not adjust hardly once after Game 1. The blown leads and lost opportunities are not all on Doc — every player deserves some level of blame, too — but just because old mistakes keep popping up, does not mean we can ignore a god-awful coaching job. It can be a roster problem and a coaching problem at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive.
Since his title run in 2008, Rivers has done nothing to prove he can coach at the highest level in the modern era. He is a strong offensive mind and not a bad coach by any stretch, but he has such overwhelming flaws that have been taken advantage of many times over the past two postseasons. The Clippers fired him for a reason, and frankly, why should the Sixers wait? What about this run would leave optimism that next season is different, even if Simmons is gone and the bench recalculated?
Rick Carlisle, Mike D’Antoni, Sam Cassell, et al — there are great coaches, old and new, ready for an opportunity. Doc will keep his job because ownership has money to save and Simmons-shaped excuses to make, but Rivers should go.
What must change for the Sixers next season: The supporting cast
Look, the Sixers cannot bring Ben Simmons back. The fanbase will not accept it. That said, the front office needs to explore change elsewhere, too. The second unit was a tire fire all postseason, even against Washington. The Hawks made it look worse. The Sixers need to put more talent and more depth around Embiid.
Maybe that depth comes from a Simmons trade. There’s a world in which they acquire multiple good players, rather than one great player in exchange for the two-time All-Star. It could also come via the draft, or via free agency, or via other trades. Simply put, Daryl Morey will have his hands full.
Shake Milton, Furkan Korkmaz, and Dwight Howard are not playoff-level rotation pieces. Matisse Thybulle is joy made human, but he can only do so much with half a jump shot and no handle. Tyrese Maxey and George Hill are the only other reliable bench pieces, and Hill looked lost the entire postseason. He should be better with a full offseason to get acclimated, but then again, he may just be old.
Morey would do well to put some more meat on the bench’s bones. It’s especially important if Doc Rivers sticks around (he will), since he’s physically incapable of stomaching fewer than 10 players in his rotation. The Sixers may also lose Danny Green in free agency, which brings about concerns over a potential fifth starter. Can Thybulle or Maxey take on such a role? Is Hill the shoo-in? Or, is there another big-ish name coming in?
A lot of change is on the horizon. The general takeaway from this article, on the broadest level, is change everything around Embiid. He is the center of the universe, and the Sixers need better planets to orbit him. Change is necessary. There’s no more hiding — not after a second-round exit to the Atlanta freakin’ Hawks.
It’s Morey season.