The final post in my series defending the front office of the 76er's. Despite the majority of my posts defending the mistakes of the 76er's front office, I still think change is needed in the front office for sure. Even if the information seems alright at the time, you simply can't take this many risks and fail every time. Elton Brand having more say is not the change I envisioned or wanted, but change it is I suppose.
This final post will be a response to another oft-cited thought that the 76er's would have been better off making no moves at all. The team was already filled with 3 point shooters around Simmons and Embiid, and that's all they need people like to say. At the onset of the 2018 season, they had established three point threats in Robert Covington and J.J. Redick, and guys with the potential to hit triples at a high rate in Shake Milton, Dario Saric, Landry Shamet, Furkan Korkmaz and Markelle Fultz before we knew about the degenerate shoulder issue. Of those guys, by the beginning of 2018 only Korkmaz and Milton remained, the two most raw prospects.
Surround them with shooters is the new hot phrase in the NBA. Spacing is so important, and so many superstars really do just need some extra three point shooting around them to thrive. 3 and D players don't need the ball, but are always a threat and open up the lane for drives. Players like Lebron James, Pascal Siakam, Giannis and more all thrive with this type of team. Simmons and Embiid are very similar. All of these guys are okay on the perimeter at best, most are worse. Barring Simmons, they can hit 3's at a respectable clip, enough to keep the defense honest, but it is far from their biggest strength. So "surrounding them with shooters" is a valid strategy, and one that certainly could work with Simmons and Embiid, which is why so many people wish the 76er's had made no moves and just kept the shooters around them. However I believe this simply would not be enough, and getting a third star was necessary for the 76er's to have any chance at a NBA Championship.
For evidence, I point to the playoffs of the 2017-2018 season. Here we saw a very similar team in the "surround them with shooters" mold get 4-1ed by the Boston Celtics. That team's starting lineup was Simmons and Embiid, and then three shooters in Redick, Saric and Covington. Off the bench they also had capable shooters in Marco Belinelli and Ersan Ilyasova. But they were not really close to defeating the Celtics that year. The next year, after grabbing Harris and Butler, they were on the cusp of defeating the NBA champions, playing them the toughest of any of the Raptor's opponents in that playoffs.
The problem with the shooters approach is that they simply don't have enough reliable scoring in the half court. Simmons is a transition wizard, but isn't anywhere close to the isolation scorer that James or Giannis are in the half court. Embiid is a fine isolation scorer, but post ups aren't sustainable in the same way that a perimeter star can be, this isn't the 80's or 90's anymore. In addition, Embiid is not a great passer out of the post, averaging more turnovers than assists for his career. For the most part, once it goes in there it isn't coming out, and teams can double Embiid all day. Embiid can still score of course, but it wears away and chips at him, and Embiid has stamina issues to begin with.
Simply put the star duo of Embiid and Simmons lack the scoring punch that truly allows "surround them with shooters" to work. Between the two, they don't match the threat that the true perimeter super stars do, and they can't make it work in the playoffs. Defense is another level, effort is another level, strategy is another level. Easy transition buckets are harder to come by. One on one post opportunities start to dry up. Against the best teams, Simmons and Embiid cannot play to their peak levels. You can see this in their numbers against the top opponents in the playoffs. Of course, numbers are expected to go down against better competition, and will look worse in a loss, but my point is their lack of ability to break down high level playoff defense is the entire issue.
Against the Raptors, Simmon's PPG dropped by five, APG dropped by nearly three and his RPG dropped by 1.5 from his regular season total. His FG% did increase, so his raw numbers can be attributed to his lack of touches as Butler became the main man, but isn't that the problem? That Simmons either can't or is unwilling to be the main man in the playoffs? In the 2018 series against the Celtics with no Butler, Simmons FG% dropped seven percent, while seeing a slight decrease in points and nearly two less assists on three more minutes per game.
Embiid saw a similar story. In 2017 against the Celtics, his totals remained the same between regular season and post-season but Embiid was playing seven extra minutes per game, meaning his effectiveness was much lower, which was also seen in a drop in field goal percentage. In 2018, he dropped from 27.5 points of 48% shooting to 17.6 on 37%, and he saw around five less rebounds. The Raptors were probably the best defense in the league that year, but that's the problem isn't it? When they face the best of the best, Simmons and Embiid alone cannot win with them being the only capable scoring threats. They cannot win with just shooters around them.
And this is more personal opinion, but they also lack the killer playoff mentality to elevate their game in the playoffs when things are hard. When a bucket is absolutely needed, Simmons and Embiid are not yet the guys that will demand the ball and shoot with supreme confidence.
That is why the 76ers need a third star to complement Simmons and Embiid. They tried it with Harris. At best he could be that third piece of the puzzle, at worst he's another shooter to pair with the two. which is what everyone wants. They tried with Butler, who is a true perimeter star that oozes that competitive "give me the ball and get out of my way" spirit that champions have, and I think that was a success. He was the 76er's leader in that Raptors series and they almost came out on top.
Two preemptive responses to arguments I'm sure will be made against my points here. The first argument being: this strategy will work if Simmons and Embiid take the next step into true superstardom, and they become a duo where all they need is shooters around them. That is true. If Simmons can even become Giannis or Siakam or Lebron-lite, it will work. And Simmons is still very young, expecting growth out of him is the norm. But unfortunately, real life doesn't work like video games. There is no guaranteed growth curve for Simmons. For the three seasons he's been in the league, he's been almost the exact same player year to year, averaging 16/8/8 on 56% with no outside shooting to speak of. Maybe he can develop a stroke, and add in some isolation scoring, but it's far from a guarantee.
Embiid on the other hand is hitting his prime, and has also been pretty much the same player his whole career. While his totals may fluctuate a decent amount, that's because his minutes and games played are similarly all over the place. His per 36 numbers tell a more accurate story, and they show Embiid as pretty much the same player he's always been. Embiid is already an All-NBA level player anyways, so further improvement isn't exactly likely.
Both Embiid and Simmons started at such a high level that a big jump was always unlikely, so the notion that the 76er's should bet on them improving in a significant way and continue surrounding them with just shooters is as bad a move as any they made in the past few years.
Argument two is: they can surround the Simmons and Embiid duo with shooters until the true superstar is available and they jumped the gun with Harris and Butler. My response there is that Butler is a true superstar to pair with Simmons and Embiid (not a perfect fit but nobody really is), so they did do that anyways. As for Harris, I covered this in the article dedicated to him, but there really isn't much out there. In the exact same scenario sans Harris, they still lose to the Raptors, Butler still leaves (Harris didn't have anything to do with Butler) and there was no free agency acquisition then or upcoming that would be obviously superior to wait on. And imagine a world where they simply kept waiting for that next super star to appear.
They still lose this year, they probably lose the next year because guys like DeMar DeRozan aren't helping them win championships either (Ingram could but betting on him to grow like he did last year or two years ago wasn't that great of a bet either and he's not a sure thing either) and now it's 2021 and people are calling for the front office's head because they wasted two years of Simmons and Embiid's prime by not making any big moves to help them.
Simmons and Embiid are not good enough to fit the mold of "surround them with shooters". Even Lebron, who is that good, needed a second shot creator in Kyrie Irving or Dwyane Wade. We saw that their performance is not quite enough yet, and relying on them to make some sort of massive leap to Lebron status is tenuous at best, wishful thinking at worst. We saw what surround them with shooters looked like in 2018 and it didn't work, and the 2019 version with at third star in Butler did much better. A third star is needed in Philly, unfortunately they spent the money on Al Horford instead.
