Philadelphia 76ers fans got word on Thursday that they will not see Paul George at the beginning of the regular season next week. What that means is that this team is going to be in an extremely unfortunate situation: they're going to be entering the season still in "get to know each other" mode.
The update from Friday morning that informed us Joel Embiid will participate in the Sixers' final preseason game serves to improve this circumstance a tad, but that doesn't diminish the fact that this team won't have totality until some point after the start of the 82-game regular season slate. That's going to put Philadelphia behind the eight ball.
If you're an NBA team coming out of an offseason, what you ideally want is to be coming into a season healthy. When all the guys are posted up in front of a microphone on media day talking with journalists, the best news you can possibly hear from any given player is that they came out of the summer healthy, and that they're not still nursing any lingering injuries. Obviously, the 76ers found themselves in the opposite of this situation with George and Embiid both still recovering throughout training camp and into preseason.
The Sixers will have growing pains during the season
That alone already puts you in a difficult circumstance because not only are you then thinking about when you'll be healthy, but it also means that the team is beginning to mesh and produce synergy without its full roster of players. You're still going to get some positive developments in preseason at some point or another, but it might be harder to see those things as ultimately meaningful without your full squad healthy.
What's instead going to have to happen in Philadelphia's case is that Embiid may be ready to go for opening night, but Paul George still isn't. As a result, the newer members of this team are going to have to figure out how to play with PG and learn his tendencies as a player more intricately once he's actually back. That's of course going to produce some growing pains, the type which you ideally would like to go through in camp and preseason, not during the regular season where the wins and losses count.
So all in all, I think there are reasons to be optimistic for the Sixers this season, but the injury situation for the star players is certainly not encouraging. Based on the high level of talent they have in locker room, I believe Philadelphia can still surprise a lot of teams. But it's still true that they are going to be fighting an uphill battle as they seek a return to normalcy over the course of the regular season.