Heading into the 2024-25 NBA season, the Sixers were seemingly sitting pretty. They had just landed what appeared to be the biggest free-agent coup in franchise history by signing Paul George to a four-year max contract, and they rounded out their supporting cast with established veterans such as Caleb Martin, Andre Drummond, Eric Gordon and Reggie Jackson.
Then everyone got hurt, and their season went completely off the rails.
One year later, the Sixers’ outlook is far less sunny. We’re left analyzing
some grainy social media videos of Joel Embiid playing basketball without a knee brace like they’re the Zapruder film. Meanwhile, George is recovering from knee surgery after he suffered an undisclosed injury in an offseason workout. He’s set to be re-evaluated prior to the start of training camp.
The silver lining of the lost 2024-25 campaign is that the Sixers landed the No. 3 overall pick, which they spent on VJ Edgecombe. It also made their front office realize that “let’s assemble the Avengers of players in their mid-30s” isn’t a viable team-building plan anymore. However, the Sixers aren’t going anywhere meaningful unless Embiid and George can make it through a season healthy.
With that in mind, ESPN dropped its latest edition of its Future Power Rankings on Tuesday. It should come as absolutely zero surprise that the Sixers did not fare well.
These rankings are ESPN’s attempt to project “the on-court success expected for each team over the next three seasons.” Last year, the Sixers landed at No. 4 overall, trailing only the Oklahoma City Thunder (great call, ESPN!), Boston Celtics and New York Knicks. They’re 19th this year, sandwiched between the Detroit Pistons (aka the Fightin’ Tobias Harrises) and the Masai Ujiri-less Toronto Raptors.
The biggest hits came in the “players” and “management” categories. The Sixers slipped from fifth last year to 19th this year in players, and their management went from a tie for fourth place last year to 23rd (!) this year. It’s worth noting that the management category also includes ownership and coaching. Perhaps ESPN is also noticing how the Sixers keep managing to sneak beneath the luxury tax, optimal asset usage be damned?
The players category accounts for 50 percent of a team’s overall future power rating, which explains why the Sixers plummeted in these rankings. Their score in that category dropped from 79 last year to 42 this year, putting them in a tie with the Milwaukee Bucks. Their management dropped from a score of 80 last year to 49 this year. The management category focuses on the “quality and stability” of the front office, ownership and coaching, so the speculation about Daryl Morey and Nick Nurse potentially being on the hot seat probably didn’t help the Sixers’ case here.
It’s hard to fault ESPN for dropping the Sixers more than any other team in the latest edition of these rankings. If George and Embiid can’t stay healthy, the Sixers will effectively be lighting $100-plus million on fire for the next few seasons. Although their young backcourt should be a clear beacon of hope moving forward, they won’t be able to overcome that much dead money on the books.
Much like the Sixers’ fourth-place ranking last year looks hilariously wrong in retrospect, ESPN might wind up being far too low on the Sixers this year. If George and Embiid do stay healthy and resemble their past selves, there’s reason to believe the Sixers could be right back into the championship mix, particularly in the injury-ravaged Eastern Conference. But until we see that happen, it’s fair to remain skeptical of the Sixers for now.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Salary Swish and salary-cap information via RealGM.
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