After a 115-103 win in game 5 of the second round, going home for game 6, it looked like this would finally be the year for the 76ers to break through to the Eastern Conference Finals. After a 16 point comeback and Boston’s Jayson Tatum not being able to make a shot it really looked like this was the year Philadelphia would finally break through. Then, Tatum took over game 6 with 16 of his 19 points coming in the fourth quarter and in game 7 back in Boston, the Sixers had no answer for Tatum as he dropped 51 points and grabbed 13 rebounds in a 112-88 Celtics win, eliminating the Sixers in the 2nd round and extending the Conference Finals drought to 22 season (last time they were there was 2001). As the wise Kendrick Perkins said, “when it comes down to game 6 and game 7, Joel Embiid and James Harden folded like a fresh set of clean sheets.”
Philadelphia lost this series because of how bad Joel Embiid was at the end of game 6 and the entirety of game 7. In game 6, Embiid’s last made field goal came with 6:13 to go in the fourth quarter, his last attempt was with 3:56 to go in the fourth quarter. For the MVP of the league to be held without a basket for the final 6 minutes of the game and without a shot attempt in 4 minutes of the game is inexcusable. In game 7, Embiid had just 15 points and 8 rebounds while being hunted on every possession down the other end by Jayson Tatum. In the regular season, Embiid averaged 33.1 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 4.2 assists, in the series against the Celtics, he averaged 25.5 points, 9.0 rebounds, and 2.0 assists. That is a massive drop off and while I know his knee was injured, the MVP of the league has to be better. James Harden’s scoring averages actually increased from the regular season to the series against the Celtics from 21.0 points per game to 22.0 points per game, and while that average may have been inflated by his 45 point performance in game 1 and his 42 point performance in game 4, he won them those 2 games, as Embiid missed game 1 and wilted in game 4. We also know Harden is an elimination game weirdo, 9 points, 7 assists, 6 rebounds, and 5 turnovers on 3/11 from the field isn’t something that anyone should be surprised about from Harden in a game 7 and while I’m not letting Harden off the hook, Joel Embiid needed to have his moment, and not only did he not have it but he got absolutely roasted by the other superstar on the court who was turning Embiid’s MVP moment into his own. For that reason, the Sixers offseason starts early, again and they have a lot of questions coming up this summer, again.
The first move of the offseason was to fire head coach Doc Rivers. While not a surprise, I expect Philly to make a safe lateral move at coach with someone like Monty Williams or Nick Nurse. While these moves could be upgrades, I thought Doc coached a good series against Boston and this would not be a very big needle move to me. I would like to see the Sixers take a swing on a young innovative coach that lines up in the analytics with Daryl Morey, while I am not sure they will, I don’t think hiring a previous head coach is the right move.
The 76ers should be preparing for the possibility that James Harden departs this summer to head back to the Houston Rockets. Due to the over-38 rule, which does not allow a team to give a player a 4 or 5 year contract if they were to turn 38 during that contract, since Harden would turn 38 in the final year of a 5 year deal, the max the Sixers can give him is 4yrs/$210 million. Meanwhile the max Houston can give Harden is 4yrs/$201million. Harden showed us last summer he is willing to leave money on the table when he left $14 million on the table so the Sixers could sign PJ Tucker and Danuel House Jr. He would be leaving $9 million on the table to head to Houston and that is even if Philly would offer the max, which would surprise me. The chances that Harden departs Philadelphia to head back to Houston are very real and the Sixers need to have a contingency plan. One way they could (kinda but not really) salvage this is by working a sign-and-trade out with the Rockets. They could maybe get a player like Kevin Porter Jr. or Jae’Sean Tate or maybe even picks and a traded player exception. The issue with that is, the Rockets do not need to create cap space to sign Harden, they have enough to sign him outright. Thus, the Rockets probably aren’t going to help Philly if Harden decides he wants to head back to Houston. With or without Harden, the Sixers need to upgrade their depth this summer.
I think the Sixers are going to trade Tobias Harris this offseason. Harris is set to make $39.2 million next season in the final year of a 5yr/$180 million contract extension he signed with the Sixers in 2019. Breaking up Harris’ contract into 2 or 3 players is something that I believe would go a long way for the Sixers. As a result I came up with some fake trades for Harris. The first one I wanted to talk about was sending Harris to the Indiana Pacers in exchange for Buddy Hield, Aaron Nesmith, and Chris Duarte. For the Sixers it gives them an elite shooter in Buddy Hield who can run a lot of dribble handoffs with Joel Embiid, similarly to the way JJ Redick and Seth Curry used to, which was very successful for Philadelphia. It also gives them more toughness and perimeter defense with Nesmith, who came out of the NBA draft in 2020 hyped as an elite shooter and shot 36% last season on 4 attempts per game. Duarte is a player who fell out of Indiana’s rotation last season but is a good shooter when given the chance. Now, this could be a tad rich for the Pacers liking but I think Harris would be a good fit on the Pacers roster, as he could be a 2nd or 3rd option on the team next season, pending on the development of Bennedict Mathurin. The Pacers need guys who can create their own shots and Harris can do just that. There are other teams that could be interested as well. The Utah Jazz have shown an interest in John Collins so maybe a 3 team trade where Collins goes to Utah and Harris to the Hawks works out. Maybe the Hornets want to add shooting around LaMelo Ball and the 2nd overall pick and send Gordon Hayward or Terry Rozier back along with another player is something both teams would do, maybe Philly could get both Hayward and Rozier. Finally, a Harden sign-and-trade to Houston with Harris also going to the Rockets and Kevin Porter Jr., Jae’Sean Tate, and another player of 2 like Usman Gurba or Josh Christopher going back to Philadelphia. I am actually a Tobias Harris fan and think someone should trade for a player who has become underrated again after being underrated for so long early in his career.
The 76ers flamed out in the 2nd round again and their coach has already paid for it as Doc Rivers was fired. However, that loss wasn’t on Rivers. The MVP of the league no-showed at the end of game 6 and in game 7 and that is why the Philadelphia 76ers are at home right now.
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