Whether it’s adding, subtracting or retooling, it’s time for the Sixers to map out a path for the rest of the 2024-25 season.
This week brings about an interesting date for Daryl Morey and the Sixers front office. On Wednesday, KJ Martin becomes officially eligible to be traded. There are certain restrictions in place regarding a trade involving Martin but there are still some intriguing options that could present themselves. Considering Martin is the most obvious outgoing Sixer in a trade, we’ve now arrived at a pivotal three-week stretch between now and the Feb. 6 trade deadline in which the Sixers must figure out what they want their short-term future to look like.
I say short-term future because however this season ends, it seems obvious that the Sixers are going to give it another go next season with their Big 3 and hope for better injury luck. The variety of opinions surrounding the Sixers at the moment is really all about how much they will try to save the 2024-25 season or if it’s even worth trying to save. The team enters Tuesday night’s game against Oklahoma City at 15-22, still below the play-in tournament line and still without Joel Embiid available. They’re in the midst of a brutal month on the schedule and given they underachieved prior to reaching this tough time of the season, there’s little reason for optimism.
So, what are Morey’s options here? He might still want to go for it this year. If that’s the case, bringing in one or two new players to help the team during the challenging January schedule would be the wise thing to do as opposed to waiting until the trade deadline when the hole to climb out of might only be deeper. Additionally, regardless of the upcoming opponents, a team that’s had so many problems churning out a consistent rotation due to injuries might be best suited to give any new acquisition as much time as possible to be integrated.
Waving the white flag and tanking for the rest of the season seems to be an increasingly popular decision. It wouldn’t guarantee the Sixers would retain their top-six protected first-round draft pick, but increasing the odds as much as possible by losing a lot in the second half of the season might be the best of several imperfect options. If this is the course of action Morey chooses to take, he’ll probably wait until the deadline to start making the appropriate strategic subtractions from the roster. Perhaps he views these three weeks before the deadline with playoff-caliber opponents on the schedule as a “now or never” time for the current roster. They’ll either prove themselves to be a roster worth adding to in early February or they’ll leave Morey no choice but to break them up.
While Morey’s strategy of going heavy on star power and filling out the roster with rookie deals, veteran minimums and other short-term deals has its flaws, it does seem to ensure the Sixers will get some calls on their role players if they decide to part ways with some of them. Martin’s 2025-26 salary is non-guaranteed. Kelly Oubre, Eric Gordon and Andre Drummond have player options for next season. If the Sixers are not feeling great about their chances to re-sign Guerschon Yabusele, they may even dangle him, however unpopular that might be. Worsening the role player group, shutting down Embiid and continuing to load manage Paul George would be the best way to tank the remainder of the year, even if Tyrese Maxey plays every game.
There might be a hybrid option in play for Morey as well over these next three weeks. It seems increasingly obvious that this collection of talent around Embiid isn’t good enough to withstand his countless absences from the lineup. But that doesn’t mean you can’t try to shake up the role group and go bargain hunting. Whether it is by shipping out players or lower-valued draft capital, Morey could look to acquire a few new players that have minimal amounts of term remaining on their contracts and see what happens.
Remember last year’s Buddy Hield move? A player or two like that who you’re taking a lottery ticket on might make sense. In a perfect world, said acquisition comes in right away and helps turn the season around and the Sixers get some better health luck in the second half of the year than they did in the first half. The worst outcome would be that the new player(s) don’t add much value at all and the Sixers continue to hover in no man’s land and either miss the play-in tournament or lose in it. Morey might not care about retaining a first-round pick he never expected to have anyway and therefore this kind of roster tinkering could appeal to him. If it works out, you find a better role player at a cheap trade cost and if it doesn’t, Morey’s willing to live with an offseason without a first-rounder.
Whatever Morey and his staff opt for in the coming weeks, standing pat will be undoubtedly the wrong move if that’s what they do. Simply doing nothing and crossing your fingers for enough wins to make the second half of the season relevant while hoping for better health for Embiid is not a plan. It’s more a prayer at this point. It’s not hyperbolic to say that if Morey chooses to stand pat and the team limps through the second half of the season the way it did in the first half, that Morey’s job should be on the line. After all, he’s already hired two coaches and had a clean slate this past offseason to do whatever he wanted to the roster.
Doing nothing and just letting the season play itself out would be wasting the first year of this Big 3 Morey assembled. The backcourt situation is a disaster without Jared McCain. There are yet again questions about the front court, namely the centers, when Embiid is not on the floor.
Doing nothing would also be not even attempting to raise the ceiling of the franchise’s future seasons which is what proponents of a tank would advocate for. Daryl Morey has created this mess and the time to begin to dig out of it has arrived.