For star-crossed Sixers, it's the hope that kills

Leave it to the Philadelphia 76ers to pull off an offseason in which they sign the best free-agent wing on the market, extend their young All-Star lead guard, draft the current Rookie of the Year front-runner 16th overall, fill out the roster with established role players on team-friendly deals, and put all those pieces around a former MVP who scored like prime Wilt Chamberlain last season ... only to have the whole thing blow up in their faces in less than a month.

The disconnect between the (ahem) process and the result feels fitting for a team that's been a mess of contradictions since Joel Embiid debuted some eight years ago. From Embiid's first full season in 2017-18 through the 2023-24 campaign, only three teams won more regular-season games than Philadelphia. All three (Milwaukee, Boston, and Denver) won championships in that period. The Sixers never made it past the second round.

There were damaging decisions from three separate front offices along the way (the Markelle Fultz gambit, Mikal Bridges for Zhaire Smith on draft night, Tobias Harris over Jimmy Butler, the ill-fated Al Horford experiment, ditching Isaiah Joe). But for nearly every disaster, there's been a savvy pivot or countermove that's helped the Sixers wriggle out of the bind.

When they pulled the plug on the Fultz project in just his second season, they traded him for a protected draft pick that - by the grace of the basketball gods and Mike Muscala - wound up delivering them Tyrese Maxey. After Ben Simmons' playoff vanishing act and passed-up layup heard 'round the world, they turned the disgruntled, psychologically and physically wounded pseudo-star into multiple productive seasons of James Harden.

The Harden experience was a mixed bag, but he played like an All-Star for the better part of his Sixers tenure. That trade still rates as a perfect-50 slam dunk for Daryl Morey considering what's become of Simmons since then, even if Harden's desultory performances in playoff elimination games - and subsequent ugly divorce with Morey - left a bitter taste in everyone's mouths. And when that led to a second high-profile holdout in the span of two years, Philly managed to flip Harden, restock its barren asset cupboard with multiple first-rounders, and get off P.J. Tucker's contract in the process.

Then this past offseason hit, and it felt like everything snapped into place; the full scope of Morey's vision and ambition came to fruition at last. His plan to preserve cap space - namely by declining to extend Maxey the previous summer and thus keeping only his small cap hold on the books - paid off when the Clippers willingly let Paul George walk into his arms, before Maxey signed a five-year extension with no opt-outs. With Embiid also agreeing to an extension, Philly had a snugly interlocking trio of stars - guard, wing, and big - nailed down through 2027-28.

Welp, the Sixers are 4-14 heading into Tuesday's game in Charlotte, and their offseason maneuvering is starting to feel like another self-imposed straitjacket. Not only have Embiid and George missed 23 combined games because of knee injuries, but they've looked like shells of themselves on the rare occasions they've suited up. Maxey has missed a third of Philly's games with a hamstring strain himself, and hasn't proven capable of picking up the slack with his two co-stars hobbled or absent.

Rookie guard Jared McCain has been a revelation. He's flashed not only a terrific shooting stroke, deft touch from floater range, and slick handles, but an advanced feel for how to relocate and rotate on either end of the floor. That ought to have been the cherry on top of the sundae, another quality rotation piece unexpectedly emerging to complement a dominant core trio. Instead, McCain has arguably been Philly's best player on balance, which is a major credit to him but also a searing indictment of the rest of the roster.

With limited flexibility after signing George, the Sixers assembled a supporting cast that looked perfectly acceptable on paper. Unfortunately, they have little to show for their work on the margins beyond the McCain pick and the sneakily great Guerschon Yabusele signing.

Caleb Martin can't shoot or dribble, Andre Drummond can't protect the rim or hold onto the basketball, and Eric Gordon has been one of the league's worst regular rotation players. Kyle Lowry is still sound of mind but no longer of body, as evidenced by his 11% usage rate and second-percentile rim frequency. Kelly Oubre can be helpful as a cutter and on-ball defender, but he undercuts those positives with coverage mistakes, bricked threes, and neglected passing windows while driving headlong into multiple defenders.

It all comes down to Embiid, though. He's the physical and spiritual embodiment of the team's contradictions, and indisputably the best player in NBA history to never make a conference final. He's simultaneously the reason to believe in and doubt Philly's ceiling, an all-consuming two-way force who may have reached a tipping point with his perpetually precarious health.

Last time we saw him healthy, he was scoring more than a point per minute while dishing out assists at a career-high rate in a redesigned offense that flowed through him at the top of the floor. Embiid was well on his way to a fourth straight top-two MVP finish last season before tearing his left meniscus (for a second time) while trying to play through nagging soreness.

Just a week before that injury, he dropped 70 points on Victor Wembanyama's head. Even when he returned in a diminished state two months later, the Sixers won their last five regular-season games with him in the lineup to bring their record to 31-8 when he played.

As ever, he had a couple of stinkers in the Sixers' first-round loss to the Knicks. But he also had a 50-point game and finished as a plus-46 in the six-game series, despite developing Bell's palsy on top of his other physical ailments. And while he had some rough moments with Team USA in the summer, there were enough positive glimmers to suggest the trimmed-down version of him would be back to his dominant ways this season, especially with George joining the fray to take some of the offensive and defensive load off his shoulders.

So much for that. Embiid sat out the first nine games of the season to rest his balky knee, and to serve a suspension for confronting a reporter who wrote a column insinuating that resting his balky knee indicated some kind of moral failing. Not much changed for the Sixers when he finally returned to the court. They lost their first three games with him back in the lineup by double digits, with Embiid shooting 12-for-37 from the field and registering a minus-38.

He looked shockingly immobile defensively, point-switching even more than usual while sitting in an ultra-deep drop or a one-man zone. He was passive as a help defender and conceded offensive rebounds when he declined to risk collision chasing after loose balls.

Then, in his fourth game back, Embiid threw caution to the wind. He was aggressive offensively, bulldozing his way to 35 points (including a perfect 14-for-14 from the free-throw line) while moving around with newfound defensive verve. The Sixers lost to the Grizzlies by six, but only because they were minus-13 in Embiid's 13 minutes on the bench, with Maxey and George combining to shoot 4-for-19 from the field and 0-for-8 from deep. All things considered, it felt encouraging.

Naturally, that effort landed Embiid right back on the shelf. He hasn't played since that game on Nov. 20. George also reinjured his knee in the loss and just returned a couple of days ago. The Sixers' would-be Big Three has spent six minutes on the court together.

For all that, hope is not yet entirely lost. We've seen Embiid start sluggishly plenty of times, and he's always steadily played his way into MVP-caliber form by midseason. Even in the uninspiring four games he's played this season, you could see how much easier it was for the Sixers to generate good shots when they had a walking double-team in the middle of the floor. Their opponents also got all the way to the basket much less frequently with his hulking presence on the back line of their defense. Maybe this latest knee injury is different and he'll truly never be the same, or maybe with enough rest Embiid can actually peak in the spring instead of the winter for once.

Maxey is still just 24 and still on an ascendent track as one of the most potent shooting/driving dual threats in the game. His playmaking has a very long way to go, but he didn't forget how to shoot and finish at the rim overnight. It's harder to make that case about the 34-year-old George, but he assuredly has more to offer than he's provided so far. And in McCain, Philly may genuinely have another All-Star caliber guard on its hands.

It's easy to talk yourself into the Sixers pulling themselves together and snagging a play-in berth in a gong show of an Eastern Conference, whose 10-seed is somehow only three games out of their grasp. Heck, they're only five games back of a top-six seed and a guaranteed playoff spot. (Look how quickly the Bucks got back in the mix after a similarly dire start to their season.) Alternatively, you can talk yourself into Philadelphia shutting Embiid down and tanking to preserve its top-six-protected pick ahead of a loaded 2025 draft.

Make no mistake, this is still a hell of a needle to try and thread. For as optimistic as one might be about the future of the Maxey-McCain backcourt, questions will persist about whether two 6-2 guards can survive in tandem, no matter how strenuously Maxey objects to being labeled small. Perhaps more pertinently, it'll be impossible to build a real contender around those guards if the wing and center that are supposed to make their jobs easier offensively and protect them defensively are chronically injured and/or underperforming their $50-plus-million annual salaries for the next four years.

Does Morey have another Houdini act up his sleeve now that his best-laid plans have gone awry? Unlikely, but not impossible. And that's the most frightening thing about the current situation in Philly: not that it's hopeless, but that there's still juuust enough cause to be hopeful. Which feels like another way of saying there's still reason enough for the Sixers and their fans to wind up disappointed in the end. Again.

Joe Wolfond covers the NBA for theScore.