In the waning days of Yao Ming’s injury-riddled, tragically short career—a time of exhilarating highs and devastating lows—the Houston Rockets’ audacious young general manager pitched the team’s owner on a radical pivot:
It’s time to tear it all down. It’s time to lose—a lot. Time to shed the big names and big salaries and place our faith in ping-pong balls.
This was 2011. Tanking was not yet the trendy strategy it would become in the analytics era. Even the term tanking was less en vogue back then. Sure, losing in pursuit of higher draft picks sometimes happened—just not at the extreme levels that would ultimately spawn a movement and give NBA officials heartburn for years to come.
Daryl Morey—then just 39 years old, in his fourth season running the Rockets, and the first analytics whiz to become an NBA GM—wasn’t advocating for a years-long tank job per se. Just a little well-timed, short-term rebuilding with the aid of a high draft pick. Yao would soon retire due to injuries. The Rockets were already slipping. Why not lean into the losing? It was, Morey believed, the most logical way forward. Logical, but wholly unappealing to Rockets owner Les Alexander, a staunch traditionalist.
“I do think bottoming out is frankly the way that has had much better history, much better odds,” Morey told me back in 2013, while I was working for The New York Times. “But frankly, it wasn’t in our nature to do it.”
Alexander vetoed the proposal, and Morey went back to churning through players and draft picks until he finally landed James Harden (via trade in 2012) and Dwight Howard (as a free agent in 2013). Morey rebuilt a contender that lost its franchise center to injury without ever tanking—indeed, without ever picking higher than 12th in the draft. It was a fairly remarkable achievement at the time.
But in 2013, Morey was also gazing with keen interest (perhaps even envy) as his former protégé, Sam Hinkie, began a methodical, multiyear teardown in Philadelphia, in a scheme to grab as many high picks—and as many chances at drafting a franchise star—as possible. The gambit worked: The 76ers drafted a future MVP (Joel Embiid) and a future All-Star (Ben Simmons) within a three-year span, and quickly rose to prominence in the Eastern Conference.
More on the 76ers’ Woes
Oh, do the Basketball Gods have a sick sense of humor.
It’s 2025, and Morey is now the team president of the 76ers—the once-mighty 76ers, now reduced to the woebegone, injury-riddled, capped-out, alternately pitied and mocked and possibly doomed 76ers. Embiid, plagued by knee problems, was just shut down for the season. Paul George, the Sixers’ celebrated acquisition last July, has been a flop. The Sixers are a ghastly 21-40, 12th place in the East, and 2.5 games out of a play-in berth.
Worse: Philadelphia owes its 2025 first-round pick to Oklahoma City … that is, unless the pick lands in the top six … which means the Sixers’ most logical path forward now is once again … (waaait for it) … to TANK!
That’s right, the team with the fourth-best odds to win the championship when the season began has been reduced to scrolling WebMD for creative injuries to assign its players and playing the lottery simulator at Tankathon.com. And Morey, whose lottery dreams were crushed by Alexander all those years ago, now gets to play the odds, and perhaps nab a blue-chip prospect.
As we said: Basketball Gods, truly a twisted bunch!
It’s been that kind of season in the NBA, with multiple would-be contenders crashing and burning in spectacular fashion. Incredibly, the Sixers aren’t even the saddest among them. The Dallas Mavericks—who were in the Finals last June—inexplicably traded their best player (Luka Doncic), immediately lost his replacement (Anthony Davis) to injury, then watched their remaining star (Kyrie Irving) go down with an ACL tear. The Phoenix Suns, who mortgaged their entire future to put Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal next to Devin Booker, might not even make the play-in tournament. By just about any measure, those two franchises are in demonstrably worse shape than Philadelphia, though that’s hardly much comfort to Sixers fans.
Philly’s predicament is exactly as depressing as it sounds, but perhaps—perhaps—not as catastrophic as it appears at first glance. To be sure, there’s no way to minimize any of this. Philadelphia has $193 million committed to Embiid, and another $162 million tied up in George, over the next three seasons. Embiid is about to turn 31, and has battled injuries throughout his career. George will turn 35 in May, and also struggles to stay on the court. The two played just 18 games together this season, in which the team went 7-11. The Sixers got just 15 games with their Big Three of Embiid, George, and Tyrese Maxey. They went 7-8.
It's fair to wonder whether Embiid, a five-time All-NBA selection who won MVP just two years ago, will ever reach those heights again. It’s fair to wonder whether George—whose scoring average (16.2 points) and shooting percentages are among the lowest of his career—can still provide the elite play that made him a nine-time All-Star. Philly’s title window might already be shut. And given the cap-clogging contracts, it’s fair to wonder whether the Sixers are simply cooked for the foreseeable future—or at least until Embiid and George come off the books in 2028.
That’s the bleakest timeline, anyway. But not the only possible outcome.
There’s a plausible scenario in which the Sixers are a top-tier playoff team next season. Internally, the Sixers are resolute that Embiid’s knee is not beyond hope, and in fact should improve over time. There is belief that, with good health, he could reclaim his dominance. A healthy Embiid is a top-10 player—and it takes a top-10 player to contend. (It was just 409 days ago that Embiid scored 70 points in a game. Seventy!) A healthy Embiid would make George, as a costar, that much more effective—instead of being forced into a leading role. Maxey is a rising star, flourishing amid the carnage. A full-ish season of that trio could still do some damage. And they should have decent help.
Jared McCain—who was a leading candidate for Rookie of the Year before a knee injury cut short his season—should be back at full strength next season. The bench has been bolstered by midseason pickup Quentin Grimes (if the Sixers can re-sign him). Aside from the pick they owe OKC, the Sixers are well stocked with draft assets. And if the Sixers do keep their 2025 pick, they’ll have a top-six draft talent to either develop or trade for immediate help.
They also have Morey, who has a long track record of creative wheeling, dealing, and salary-cap maneuvering (along with, of course, his share of misfires). Incredibly, Morey had never had a losing season until now—a fact underlined by Sixers managing partner Josh Harris last summer, when he explained his enduring belief in Morey’s vision: “I’ve seen Daryl operate. … And a lot of it has been adapting to situations where he has to move quickly to create interesting deals.”
This might be the biggest challenge of Morey’s career. And creativity alone might not be enough this time. Philly’s fate ultimately depends on Embiid’s left knee, but also on George’s resilience, Maxey’s progression, and the wayward bounces of a bunch of ping-pong balls in mid-May.
Those lottery odds keep improving as the Sixers plummet in the standings (13 losses in their past 15 games). But the race to the bottom this year is particularly fierce, with a potential franchise star (Duke’s Cooper Flagg) and several other blue-chip talents atop the draft board, providing every incentive to lose.
Four teams—Washington, Charlotte, Utah, and New Orleans—are virtually entrenched at the bottom of the standings (i.e., the top of the lottery). Just behind them, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and Toronto are all jockeying for position. And remember: Just finishing with a bottom-six record won’t ensure that the Sixers keep their pick. It only improves their odds.
Will the Sixers chase those odds and lean into the losing? Will they eventually shut down George or Maxey to protect their draft position? The race to keep their pick just might be the most compelling race left in the regular season.
There’s no simple fix here, no magic elixir that will restore Embiid’s health or erase hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts. There’s no pivot, no rebuild, and no market for a creaky Embiid or George, even if the Sixers wanted to try it. Their only way out of this mess is the path they already chose.
