Playoff dreams, Play-In nightmares or ‘Sag for Flagg’? Where Maxey’s injury puts Sixers now

Taking rosey, grim and middle views regarding Tyrese Maxey’s most recent hamstring injury.

The Sixers are 1-6. There are two games remaining before we’ve hearing Joel Embiid could make his season debut at home vs. the (currently 3-4) New York Knicks. Tyrese Maxey is expected to miss a couple of weeks with a hamstring strain he suffered against the L.A. Clippers this past Wednesday. He’ll be reevaluated in a week to see where he’s at.

With a fanbase that has endured a lot over the years. folks are understandably feeling a bit fatalistic right now about a season that just so recently gave them reason for optimism the team might win its first championship in 42 years.

Their margin for error now is basically nil as SBN’s Ricky O’Donnell spelled out. But how slim?

First let’s take a…

Glass half full look

Maxey only misses two weeks and returns vs. the Brooklyn Nets on Nov. 22. He’ll only have missed seven games, and who knows, maybe at 24 years old, he’s not even that rusty.

We’ll say Embiid, (still dealing with soreness or instability and working his way back from the surgically repaired meniscus he suffered last winter) only misses the single back-to-back set in this span, and looks like an All-Star at worst, an MVP candidate at best. Let’s bake in some growing pains and rust just to be fair, even in our most optimistic scenario.

Philly rattles off 1-of-2 before Joel’s back, then takes 3-of-the-next-six, before we’ve penciled Tyrese in for a return. Now they’re 5-10 as they finally get their Big 3 on the floor together roughly a week before Turkey Day.

With 67 games remaining at that point, what’s a rose-colored forecast for how many of those Embiid will play in? With 14 back-to-backs left on the full slate we won’t expect Embiid to play in (skipping either the first or the second of each), if we magically granted Jo no other injuries, that’s only 53 games.

With a career’s .663 win percentage, maybe they take 2-of-3 games the big fella appears in.

(They won 79 percent of the games he played in last season, so this .663 number is fairly low, but since we’re basically granting one of the most injury-prone stars in history a bill of clean health, we’ll roll with it.)

PG and Maxey stay healthy too, and somehow manage to help the team win 40 percent of the games Joel can’t suit up for. They couldn’t even crack 1-of-3 without Joel last year, but then again, George wasn’t here.

In this glass half full view, the Sixers finish with roughly 45-48 wins. If they swing a trade for even more reinforcements maybe that can be even higher (49-50?!) The low end here would have been good enough for the ninth seed in 2023-2024, the third “best” Play-In team. If you think Joel (again fully healthy in all the non-back-to backs remaining) can help the team to more than a .663 win percentage, and maybe PG and Maxey can win more than 40 percent of the games he sits, that number could be marginally higher (48?) But I’m certainly not expecting George at 34 years-old, plays in every back-to-back himself, nor would I want him to.

A 48 win total in 2023-2024 would have landed them a four or five seed.

But OK, I hear you careful readers, maybe there’ll be more or less parity this season and a 46 win total could land them a higher seed! Maybe they can still somehow avoid the Play-In in this case.

Glass half empty view

We don’t have to waste much time here. The season is lost. Maxey asks James Harden for advice on how to recover from a hamstring strain and his career becomes permanently altered, and he never regains his burst.

George picks up a few injuries, Joel never looks quite right and aggravates the knee, and the Sixers dedicate themselves to retaining the draft pick (they once traded to dump Al Horford) which will only remains with them if it falls No. 1-6 on NBA Lottery Day. If it’s No. 7-30, it falls to Oklahoma City.

It’s grim, but both the Golden State Warriors once upon a time felt compelled to bench healthy veterans (like Jamal Crawford) in an attempt to improve a pick that became Steph Curry. In 2011, had their pick fallen later, would have went to the Jazz but instead they snagged Klay Thompson. They did it even more shamelessly in 2012 for picks that led to Harrison Barnes and Draymond Green and subsequently Kevin Durant joining forces. The Los Angeles Lakers more recently felt compelled to keep picks that the 76ers had dibs on, shamelessly tanked, and built up (not 1, 2 but 3!) no. 2 pick draft ammo they’d one day need to acquire Anthony Davis… who helped them win a title in 2020, and now, well…

So if things truly fall apart, they would be wise to find some way to be reboot the Process, just for a year, a la the Warriors, Lakers, San Antonio Spurs or Miami Heat… once upon a time.

Make bloopers for Cooper, anyone?

Head into the pooper for Cooper? Sag for Flagg? Whatever, you get the point here.

The Sixers could actually finish with the 10th-best record in the East, and leap to nab the No. 1 pick on lottery night like the Atlanta Hawks did last spring. I know we’re in the nightmare view here and I outlined a “lucky” outcome, but it’s all in the cards at this point.

More likely here would be they finish in the Play-In, aren’t fully healthy, and their draft pick goes to OKC.

In that gory nightmare above, our Bryan Toporek has already noted why 2025-2026 might be a better title window for Philadelphia anyway.

The middle view

OK, so maybe the 76ers finishing above the Play-In with a No. 4-6 seed is a bit optimistic. And finishing with a terrible record, not even making the playoffs, and not even retaining their draft pick is a bit grim.

How about this?

There’s 73 games remaining when Joel makes his season debut. There are 14 back-to-backs he won’t play in. That leaves us 59 games, assuming no injury or soreness, maintenance days. But let’s bake in a small handful of those and forecast Joel playing in 50 of that 59. And let’s say they win 70 percent of that 50. That’s 35 wins. If PG and role players can get them at least one or two before Maxey returns, and PG or Maxey and role players can get them 40 percent of the remaining, that’s another nine wins; plus the 1-3 they’ll have before Joel makes his debut.

That puts us at a reasonably estimated ~43-45 wins. And again, a trade could help boost that too. Long story short, leads you to what you probably assumed without thinking about any of this carefully: they can still avoid the Play-In, and can still be a very credible playoff threat, but they need to be healthy when they’re out there. And they need as many games with their Big 3 on the floor together in the worst way.

Otherwise, it’s onto 2026, and we’ll look back and say this season was Joever before it even got off the tarmac.