Philadelphia 76ers: Importance Of This Season For The Young Core

The Philadelphia 76ers will start the season with low expectations but very high hopes. It’s what the life of the rebuild brings every season, but this year holds more importance than past rebuild years.

Trust The Process rang through the fanbase of the Philadelphia 76ers the past three seasons. Many took the phrase with a cult-like love while others viewed it as an excuse for Sam Hinkie’s “questionable” moves. The Process was supposed to bring a star. For three seasons, Hinkie and his plan failed to do so.

He accumulated talent in Nerlens Noel, who is a difference maker but not quite the cornerstone piece. Drafting Joel Embiid was to lead to the team’s next star, but setbacks prevented him from seeing the court. Taking big name player Jahlil Okafor was supposed to alleviate the worry of the star but the promise of that is sharply declining.

Hinkie resigned before the end of last season. Before his goal of reaching a star was accomplished. Before he could lay claim to ending up with projected superstar Ben Simmons. Before he could see Joel Embiid compete in a live game. Before he could see his unit of stars grow together in a way that would bring basketball pride back to Philadelphia.

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This season is important. Not because it’s the first post-Process season, but because this is the start of the new core’s reign in Philadelphia. Look around the rest of the league, towards the Minnesota Timberwolves, to the Milwuakee Bucks. Minnesota is watching Andrew Wiggins slowly evolve into a high-end wing and in the midst of a Karl Anthony-Towns explosion. These two were brought on a year apart and are growing with Ricky Rubio and Shabazz Muhammed. They also added Kris Dunn this past year.

Milwuakee has seen the evolution of Giannis Antetokounmpo to complement the consistency of the more veteran Khris Middleton. Jabari Parker and Thon Maker provide high-potential low post players. Parker was selected in 2014, Maker this summer.

Both organizations have had major parts of their core gel together over time, allowing for new pieces to be eased in. The Philadelphia 76ers don’t have that benefit. Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor have had an uneasy stretch of 690 minutes of court time together. Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Dario Saric will be thrown into the organization right from the start to be major core pieces.

The core is set, kind of. Simmons and a hopefully healthy Embiid are slated as sure things for the core, add in the potential lottery pick this coming June and you have a supposed “big three”. The uncertainty of both Noel and Okafor and their playing styles interfering with Embiid puts them in question for core players.

Certainly one of them can put together a season grand enough to throw them in the undoubtable core players conversation, but this season all eyes are on Simmons and Embiid. They must show flashes, even if rare flashes, of greatness together to solidify the belief that they can lead the future.

The formation of the core started to come together this past summer, and they will have a shorter timeline than other rebuilding cores to gel on the court. Antetokounmpo and Middleton have had their time. Towns and Wiggins have had a full season surrounded by veterans. These Philadelphia 76ers stars will come in with the great challenge of showing monstrous performances in year one.

This is the day Sam Hinkie and the Process would hope to see. This would be the season that real criticism or praise can come in the form of on-court performance beyond the win-loss record. The culmination of the past three seasons starting to fall in to place. This season is the most “Process” it can get. Seeing a core of young players coming in at one time, full-force. Aggressive just like the rebuild has been in it’s own twisted way.

(Milwuakee and Minnesota) have had major parts of their core gel together over time, allowing for new pieces to be eased in. The Philadelphia 76ers don’t have that benefit.

This season will become symbolic in ways that could span from devastating to glorious. Philadelphia finally saw the greatest player in it’s 2000’s-era of basketball be put in the hall of fame. The most impactful player in Philadelphia sports in Allen Iverson shook the franchise like no one else. There was no core, there was just him. Him and the rest of the team. It wasn’t the Philadelphia 76ers, it was the Answer’s team.

What a symbol of change and dedication it is that the next crowned star in Ben Simmons is coming in with young talent he has the ability to grow with? More of a dedication to the future instead of going all in for one year, as Philly has been accustomed to. What hasn’t changed, however, is the city’s yearning for an expressive star to lead this team.

The city will have two. Two players that will have the pressure of rookies to provide hope for the future of basketball in the city. Hope that through LeBron James‘ reign of terror on the East, Golden State’s light-years program, and the rise of the young Timberwolves that folk-like superstars will be able to eventually lead this city to the pinnacle of the game.

That starts now. The roots will have to be planted now. Not for the Process, Hinkie, or even the fanbase. This season will serve as instantaneous proof for the core, showing if they have any shot of becoming an elite-level unit. Not because of some breakout play from Gerald Henderson or Sergio Rodriguez, but because this young core came together in the way they’ve been expected to.

This season will foreshadow what the core will look like. Through the inevitable and insurmountable losses coming this season, the young core will have to shine through and show some promise. The building blocks are set, and now it’s time for the organization to utilize them.

This year is, believe or not, make or break for the Philadelphia 76ers. This will be the year they can assess a core group of players and decide whether the team can move forward with them. It can’t be a slow assessment, as many of these young players are already sniffing the beginning of the end of their contracts.

Noel is going into his contract year. Embiid in the following. Saric and Simmons are starting their rookie contracts now, and Okafor is signed through 2019-20. Half the “core” is under the cloak for a bit, while others are coming towards a big payday.

Next: Settling Nerlens Or Jah Debate

Paying big money for Noel, then possibly following it up with big money with Embiid suddenly takes the team from a financially wealthy team to a salary cap restricted franchise. The need to assess who can take this team to new levels will have to happen sooner than later. The season will turn out to be the most iconic of the now dead Process. It’s a shame, we finally would have been able to grade it.