The Philadelphia 76ers’ championship aspirations have fallen off a cliff.
After signing All-Star forward Paul George to a four-year, $212 million contract in the offseason, the Big 3 of George, Joel Embiid, and Tyrese Maxey have played together in just 11 of the 76ers’ 51 games, including Friday’s contest against the Detroit Pistons. With the team sitting in 11th place in the Eastern Conference standings and outside the playoff picture, questions about the franchise’s future direction are mounting.
Embiid has appeared in just 15 games this season (including Friday night), dealing with left knee and left foot injuries, a sinus fracture, and serving a three-game suspension for shoving a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist.
George has missed 19 games due to separate hyperextended left knee injuries and a finger injury, while Maxey sat out six games with a hamstring issue.
Daryl Morey opens up about Joel Embiid’s future with Philadelphia 76ers
During a 30-minute press conference Friday, 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey affirmed the franchise’s commitment to building around Embiid despite his extensive injury history.
“Players like Joel are so special,” Morey said, via NBC Sports Philadelphia. “And so we’re building around Joel, we’ve built around Joel, and we’ll continue to plan to build around Joel because he’s the special player that can help us win the championship.”
Daryl Morey spoke today about his continued belief in building around Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George.
“[A top-5 player] is required to win a championship. It doesn’t happen without one of these special players. We’re building around Joel, we’ve built around Joel, we… pic.twitter.com/H4lqxOAztT
— PHLY Sixers (@PHLY_Sixers) February 7, 2025
The stance may frustrate 76ers fans. As dominant as Embiid is when healthy — he was NBA MVP two seasons ago and dropped a franchise-record 70 points against the San Antonio Spurs last year — he has missed about half of all regular-season games since being drafted in 2014. He no longer plays in back-to-back games, and he has yet to lead Philadelphia past the second round of the playoffs.
Despite Embiid coming off a major knee injury last season, Morey gave him a three-year, $193 million extension in September. The star center is now owed nearly $300 million through the 2028-29 season.
“Joel is core to everything we do,” Morey emphasized. “We believe he’s the right guy to build around. We believed it this offseason. We believed it, based on what we knew about his whole situation, and we believe that he, Tyrese and Paul can win a championship. We’ll see if that turns out to be true, and it doesn’t look easy to spot how it’s going to work right now, given the path we’ve given ourselves, but we believe in that.”
That remains to be seen. If things turn south even more, Embiid is eligible to be traded in the offseason.