The 2024-25 season is essentially over. However, the Sixers are left with few options outside of trying again to field a competitive team in 2025-26.
The final six weeks of the season are not going to yield anything different than what we’ve seen for the first four months from the Sixers. At this point, that’s a good thing as it is paramount for Philadelphia to retain its top-six protected first-round pick in this summer’s draft. There’s some more losing to be done over the last 24 games that can improve the Sixers’ chances of retaining the pick, but it’s time to start talking about what the future of this franchise looks like beginning with this offseason.
The official announcement shutting down Joel Embiid for the remainder of the season has not happened yet, but it seems to be only a matter of time until that comes. Where the franchise goes from here is complicated and none of the options are super appealing. The Sixers really can’t tear down their roster and take a Process 2.0 approach here. Embiid’s contract is nearly impossible to move and the market for Paul George will be limited. Fans should prepare for both players to be on the 2025-26 opening night roster. That leaves Tyrese Maxey as the only high-value trade chip they could dangle if they truly wanted to ignite a rebuild and trading Maxey while keeping the two injury-riddled veterans seems like a half-measure towards a rebuild that would be pretty pointless.
It’s also possible that Daryl Morey and Nick Nurse, both of whom appear to be poised to return next season, will want to use next season as a barometer for what the ceiling of a team built around Maxey could be. For now, it seems like the consensus opinion is that Maxey is best suited to be the second-best player on a championship team, but he’s never really been the focal point of the Sixers’ roster constructions. In other words, we don’t know for sure that he can’t be the best player on a championship team, it’s just an educated guess and Morey and Nurse might want to give it a try even if the odds are low. Embiid played at least 50 games in each of Maxey’s first three seasons in the NBA. Once it appeared Maxey was the clear Robin to Embiid’s Batman, Embiid’s knee problems started shortly thereafter.
Perhaps the most obvious reason next season figures to be one in which the Sixers try to win games and return to the playoffs is that they have multiple outstanding first-round pick debts owed to other teams. That’s right, in case you didn’t know, the debt to Oklahoma City that Sixers fans are looking to avoid paying this offseason is not the only outgoing first-round pick the Sixers are dealing with. Two years after conveying a first-rounder to the Thunder, Philadelphia will owe Brooklyn a top-eight protected first rounder as the final piece of the Ben Simmons-James Harden trade.
That means if Philadelphia ends up conveying this year’s first-rounder to Oklahoma City, it would owe a top-eight protected first to Brooklyn in 2027. Should that 2027 first land in the top eight, it would remain an outgoing top-eight protected first rounder in 2028 and if it is a top eight pick in 2028, Philadelphia then sends Brooklyn its 2028 second-rounder.
Should the Sixers retain this year’s first-rounder, the protected range on the debt to Oklahoma City drops to just the top four in 2026 making it almost certain that the pick is conveyed by the 2026 draft at the latest. In the case of the Oklahoma City debt being paid next year, the conditions on Philly’s 2028 outgoing first-rounder to Brooklyn would still apply. To sum all of this up, what sense does it make to engineer a full roster tear down when the status of your own first-round picks is up in the air until potentially as late as 2028?
With a Process 2.0 plan not very feasible, what should the Sixers do? The answer is for Morey to continue doing what he started doing at this year’s trade deadline. They must continue to find creative ways to get younger. Since Embiid and George both can’t be relied upon to guide this team to a championship and will be gobbling up a good chunk of this team’s salary cap, the most challenging task for Morey will be finding other top-end talent pieces that can be a part of a core with Maxey and Jared McCain. That’s why keeping this year’s first-round pick is imperative because if that pick becomes Cooper Flagg, the future calculus of the entire organization could take a sharp turn in a positive direction for once. It’s a unique opportunity to steal a potential superstar if the ping-pong balls bounce your way.
Options will be limited as far as acquiring high-end talent via trade or free agency. This leaves the Sixers with little choice but to see what kind of team they can put together with Maxey, McCain returning, hopefully a highly-drafted rookie joining the fold and whatever you can get from Embiid and George next season.
Once the first-round pick conveys to Oklahoma City, assuming it’s in 2026, the Sixers can begin to map out their future with some more certainty. If the Thunder debt is paid next year and not this year, the Sixers will have their 2027 first-rounder with no restrictions attached to it. The Brooklyn debt would still have to be paid in 2028 but they still have a 2028 unprotected first-round pick from the Clippers that was acquired in the James Harden trade. The Clippers are one of the league’s older rosters and therefore their first-rounder unprotected in three years’ time is definitely worth holding on to for a Sixers team that needs to keep getting younger.
But for the next 12 months, with no clear-cut path towards rebuilding, and likely no major changes coming to the coaching staff or front office, the Sixers are going to at least make an effort at competing next season. It sounds miserable and directionless. It sounds like putting everything on hold for at least a year because they’re stuck with Embiid and George’s contracts and the draft pick situation is murky. But, if they’re even mildly successful in fielding a competitive team next year, one would think that would involve some positive contributions from Embiid and George next season.
George might be able to get moved as early as next year’s deadline if his play improves with the Sixers. His injuries this season have seemed to be more of the nagging variety as opposed to the chronic knee problem Embiid is saddled with. A team that’s desperate enough could certainly convince itself that George’s performance woes are more due to him not caring about this season and not him being washed and that he would care more and try harder if he was in a better situation. While a lot of this is speculation, that’s all we can do regarding the entire future of the franchise at the moment. The more you speculate, the more you’ll realize there are enough dots to connect that lead to the team’s main offseason goal being fielding a competitive roster and getting back into the playoffs in 2025-26. It’s really all they can do.