PHILADELPHIA — Throughout Joel Embiid’s time with the Philadelphia 76ers, he has endured a great deal of change as the Sixers continually search for the pieces they need to give themselves a chance to contend for a title.
The Sixers underwent significant change in the 2023-24 season. Philadelphia had to move James Harden in October following his offseason trade request. Then they made a flurry of moves at the deadline.
On the flip side, Embiid and Tyrese Maxey grew as a pair, and the big fella hopes they can keep that continuity.
“Like I said, all of them lasted one year,” Embiid said after the first-round loss to the New York Knicks. “That’s the problem. Who won last year? Denver. Jamal (Murray), Nikola (Jokic), they’ve been together for eight years or something like that. Seven? You look at some of the teams that have won — Golden State Warriors — they’ve been together for a long time. I don’t remember you just put a team together and hoped that it worked out for one year.”
The big fella is a student of the game. He sees the teams that have won in the past. The Denver Nuggets kept their core together despite some shortcomings, and they won a championship. He wants the same in Philadelphia.
“That’s on those (front office) guys,” Embiid added. “That’s what they get paid for. Our job is to get better as basketball players. Every single year, I find a way to get better. Tyrese has gotten so much better, and I think there’s even another step that he can take. Some of the guys in the locker room, they’ve gotten better. Every single year, I’ve gotten better, so I’m excited to keep working on my game and myself, keep getting better, but when it comes to guys around, I like our group of guys.”
The Sixers have a slew of free agents and a great deal of cap space they have to make decisions about. Obviously, Embiid has nothing to do with those decisions as those questions will be answered by the front office, but the Knicks have some chemistry with their core and it’s something he pointed out after the loss.
“I think we have an amazing group of guys,” Embiid added. “Obviously it didn’t work out this year, but we also played a great team. The New York Knicks, they did a great job, and they’ve played together for a long time. So I like our guys. Obviously, they’ve got a lot of decisions to be made, but I think the group of guys we had this year, they were amazing. I still believe that, if everything went right, we had a chance, but everything didn’t go right.”
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