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The Philadelphia 76ers had an extremely disappointing 2019-20 season that included high expectations and getting nowhere near filling them. An up and down regular season then led way to a disappointing Round 1 sweep at the hands of the Boston Celtics that should not have happened even without Ben Simmons.
A lot of eyes were on the big man duo of Joel Embiid and Al Horford as the Sixers were trying to buck the current small ball trend by playing bully ball. It did not work as in Round 1, they did not make enough shots to keep up with the Celtics.
Embiid and Horford had their issues offensively all season. With Embiid playing center and Horford at the power forward, their offensive rating was only 104 per Cleaning the Glass. They were great defensively as the pairing had a 104.5 defensive rating, but the offensive struggles were not enough to overcome.
“There’s a lot of room for improvement,” said Embiid of the pairing. “You just got to figure it out. I thought we were good. I never see a problem. You just got to figure it out. That’s where working on my game is going to be huge. It’s not always about the post.”
Embiid is referencing the fact that he has to improve in all facets of his game. With the game played a bit differently than traditional basketball, he has to add other skills to his game that normally would not be needed out of a big man.
However, the Sixers have guys who can almost the same thing so now the challenge is for Embiid to find the spacing and get things going for the team on offense.
“Tt’s about helping my teammates,” explained Embiid. “We got a bunch of guys that like to post up including me, including Ben, Tobias (Harris), and Al so sometimes you just got to give those guys the space they need to help the team.”
In terms of Horford, Embiid has a lot of respect for the elder statesman as a leader. It has always been the case that Horford is known as a leader, but at some point, the production on the floor is going to have to match what he brings in leadership. He only averaged 7.0 points and 7.3 rebounds in the playoffs against Boston.
“Al is a great guy. He helped us a lot,” Embiid finished with. “I thought he was great for us defensively, but we just all got to get better. Looking at the series, we just couldn’t make shots, especially from three.”
There is no guarantee that Horford will be on this roster next season, but if he is, he and Embiid will have to figure some things out on the offensive end of the floor. [lawrence-related id=37180,37161,37169]