Can the Sixers Win Without Joel Embiid?
Coming off of last night’s loss to the Detroit Pistons, a game in which Joel Embiid sat, the Sixers are still positioned as the 1st seed in the Eastern Conference.
Despite that, this game has raised a major red flag for the team. The Sixers have played four games without the potential league MVP this season and have lost all four. Now it would be extremely obvious to say that taking the best player off of any team makes that team worse. However, the Sixers team seems balanced enough and deep enough to beat teams without Embiid. Yet here we are having lost four games without him. So the question remains, can the Sixers win without Joel Embiid?
The answer should be a resounding yes but as these four games without him have proven, it is not that simple. The Sixers’ starting lineup has played well this entire season and the bench has proven itself to be one of the best in the NBA. With that being the case, why is the team so bad without him? Well one of the major reasons other than the fact that he is the team’s best player on both ends of the floor, is that when the team gets into a scoring rut, there is no Joel Embiid to pull them out of it.
How many times has this exact scenario happened to the Sixers: the team goes on a scoreless run for three, four, five minutes at a time, only for Joel Embiid to get the ball in the post or at the baseline and everyone gets out of his way so he can pull us out of it? It’s almost a nightly occurrence for the team. Having that player who so dominant offensively is both a blessing and a curse for the team. It is a blessing for that exact scenario laid out previously, but it is also a curse because if you take him out of the game, there is no one else who can do that.
This is not meant to disparage any individual player(s). This is a team problem. When a player is out of the rotation for whatever reason, the team as a collective has to step their game up and make up for their missing production both offensively and defensively regardless of who it is. Is that an even bigger task when it’s the team’s best player? Of course. But that alone cannot continue to cost the team games throughout the season. The Sixers are only 18 games into the 72 game regular season. Joel Embiid will miss more games during that time which means the rest of the team will have to continue to try and figure out how to play without him. Hopefully for us all, the teams gets it figured out quickly.
Do you think the Sixers can win games without Joel Embiid in the lineup?
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Photo: via Eric Hartline/USA TODAY Sports
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