Philadelphia 76ers have less room for error going forward

Now that the Philadelphia 76ers have assembled a roster with quality talent, the team must act, as they will now be on the radar both locally and beyond.

Philly has a lot to look forward to. The Philadelphia 76ers built a solid core around young talent. Through the draft, they were able to bring in top-three picks in Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Markelle Fultz.

These three alone would make any team ecstatic. But, they didn’t stop there. In addition to such a young, talented core the Sixers acquired the likes of Jerryd Bayless, J.J. Redick, and Amir Johnson in free agency. Not to mention, they have a solid farm system of home-grown role players in T.J. McConnell, Dario Saric, Richaun Holmes, and Robert Covington. So, I guess you can say the Sixers have the makings of a playoff team in store.

Now, this comes with its positives and negatives. Obviously, the Sixers will finally get some respect from opposing teams. No longer will the top dogs take them likely. You won’t see these teams benching their stars against Philly the way they used to. On top of that, the Sixers will likely get more of a national spotlight. The team already has a Christmas game, as well as 14 nationally televised games.

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That’s all well and good, but that doesn’t mean the Philadelphia 76ers can coast this season. With all of this added press, the Sixers have a target on their back. Opposing teams will likely see them as a more prominent threat, especially in a weaker Eastern Conference. With the East as top-heavy as ever, the middle of the conference looks much more attainable. The Sixers will likely play a major role in this playoff hunt now.

In previous years, fans of the Philadelphia 76ers didn’t necessarily care about losing. The end goal was to acquire quality young talent, something the team didn’t a good job of before. Now that they have the talent, that talent needs to find a way to compete. Now, I’m not saying they have to make the Eastern Conference Finals (although, that wouldn’t be a bad thing), but they need to show progress.

That means they need to make the playoffs. Of course, making the playoffs means they need to go at least .500 on the season. That would be a 13 game improvement on the previous season. Is this attainable? Absolutely.

Remember January? The Sixers went ten and five that month and started to look like they could think about the playoffs. In fact, Joel Embiid was confident that the Sixers could start to look towards the playoffs in a post-game interview with CSN Philly’s Molly Sullivan. While that did not end up happening, such a bold statement still resonates with this team. This year, they SHOULD think about the playoffs.

Next: What kind of super duo will Philadelphia 76ers Ben Simmons & Joel Embiid be?

Ultimately, the Philadelphia 76ers need to live up to the hype. As much as we want to speculate on their potential success, it needs to be met with hard work and dedication. For a young team, the next step in this process is to make the playoffs. Hopefully, they can do so with conviction.