The Sixers have figured out the key to a stress-free life.
You can’t let anybody down if they don’t have any expectations.
It would be a fitting twist if this was the year the Sixers finally lived up to the hype of the last decade. They spent eight years as a Snapchat-filter contender, entering each season with the unsubstantiated energy of a team that desperately wants to speak its self-image into existence but at the same time understands that the teams that win NBA titles usually aren’t the ones trying to channel Ben Affleck in Boiler Room. The problem with the whole “act as if” mindset is that you need to stop acting at some point or else you just become an act.
The tricky thing about the Sixers is that it is tough to pinpoint when, exactly, they became that act, given the preponderance of options. I would argue that it was when James Harden held a birthday party at which women held signs that said, “Daryl Morey is a liar.” But you could just as easily argue that it happened a year earlier, when the Sixers traded a guy who was too scared to throw down an open dunk in a decisive playoff game for a guy who showed up to a playoff press conference wearing a designer coat that looked like it was constructed from the pelt of a Teletubby.
Morey has taken the brunt of the blame for the last couple of seasons, mostly because it was his name on the marquee. If you don’t like the circus, you either blame Barnum or you blame Bailey. In selling Harden and then Paul George, Morey’s message was the classic “Don’t believe your eyes.” The scariest part of Dave Dombrowski’s press conference last week was when he channeled Morey and suggested that older players don’t get old the same way they used to. Whatever truth there is to it — and I could lay out a very strong case that there isn’t much — the marvels of modern sport science still haven’t managed to solve a conundrum that each of us encounters at some physiological age. Once you get old, there is no getting un-old. The only question is whether you can slow down the decay.
Funny thing about Morey, though. While his more vocal critics have written him off as little more than a salesman, they are giving his sales proficiency way too much credit. He has been much better at his actual job, which, let’s not forget, began five years ago with inheriting a roster that was assembled on the premise that Al Horford and Josh Richardson could be the missing pieces that would enable Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Tobias Harris to win a title. Back then, people felt a lot like they did by the end of last season. The Sixers’ best chance had already passed them by.
What the interim has wrought is in the eye of the beholder. It has been easiest to focus on Morey’s yearly quest to push the Sixers over the top, his annual reshuffling of the deck, from Simmons to Harden to George, each one falling short of even reaching the conference finals. The Sixers have not come close to achieving the ultimate goal, but they have made a sport of it, taking the Celtics to Game 7 in 2023 and the Knicks to Game 6 in 2024 before landing George as part of a free-agent bonanza last summer. Yet even as they have tried and failed — and flailed — they somehow manage to enter 2025-26 with a roster that actually looks like the one the Sixers thought they had in those first post-Process years, long before Morey arrived. Morey drafted Tyrese Maxey and then Jared McCain and just five months ago VJ Edgecombe, who may have the most potential of them all.
You watched the Sixers this preseason and you saw the makings of the team they never actually had. The first quarter of their 126-110 win over the Timberwolves on Friday was eye-opening. Early in the quarter, Edgecombe crashed the weak-side glass and corralled a Kelly Oubre miss for an easy putback. Edgecombe and Maxey spent the period running the court like it was crumbling behind them, pushing the pace after makes as well as misses, displaying an uncanny connection for teammates whose partnership can be measured in months.
After going hard to the basket and finishing his textbook footwork with a contested layup off a fastbreak pass from Maxey, Edgecombe stole the ball from Johnny Juzang at the other end of the court, sparking another break that resulted in a free-throw trip for Quentin Grimes. But the most instructive play might have been one that failed: a cross-court, alley-oop pass from Maxey near the hash to Edgecombe on the weak-side block. They did not convert, but they came close enough to project that they will finish plenty of them.
Even without McCain, who quickly worked his way to the top of the rotation last season and who will be there again soon, the Sixers looked a lot like the kind of team people always wished they would be instead of steadily growing older, slower, and more difficult to watch.
For the first time in a long time, the Sixers have the makings of a team that is, at the very least, a fun team to root for. It remains to be seen how well it will translate into wins. It will translate into more than people think if Embiid can consistently be the guy he was in his preseason debut. Healthy. Light on his feet. Knocking down elbow jumpers and charging to the rim. Whatever they get from George will be a bonus.
And, who knows, maybe that will be enough in a wide-open Eastern Conference where two top contenders are taking gap years. Injuries to the Celtics’ Jayson Tatum and the Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton have created a power vacuum. You can’t completely discount the Sixers’ chances of filling it.
For now, the reason to watch this team is for an early look at what the future will look like. Edgecombe has a chance to become the Sixers’ most electric star since Allen Iverson. Maxey is Maxey, and McCain is almost as fun to watch. It is a fascinating dynamic, one that complicates the more cynical narratives about the Sixers’ trajectory over the last five years.
The safe play is to not expect much out of the Sixers. But you can expect them to be fun.
