Philadelphia 76ers: Get Joel Embiid the ball in the paint

In only 20 glorious minutes of action, Joel Embiid turned in his best performance of the season for the Philadelphia 76ers.

Now granted, technically, Embiid turned in his worst preseason contest of the fall too, as he didn’t play in the Sixers’ first preseason game and thus only has one game to go by, but that’s about the only way one could knock the preseason debut of “The Process.”

Defense? Dominant. Embiid put up six rebounds, a steal, and a block in 30 minutes of action while making the lives of would-be drivers like Precious Achiuwa and Scottie Barnes a whole lot harder than their preseason debut.

And on offense? Well, Embiid got that pretty much whenever he wanted it too, even if he missed both of his shots from beyond the arc and didn’t quite exert himself enough to put up his usual 30-plus point performance versus a team without a true center.

But there was a trend from the 2020-21 NBA season that reared its ugly head a mere 20 minutes into the first appearance of Joel Embiid’s eighth professional season with the Philadelphia 76ers.

The Philadelphia 76ers need to build their offense around Joel Embiid’s post presence.

Think back, if you will, to the 2021 NBA playoffs. Do you remember how the Philadelphia 76ers’ offense looked with Ben Simmons running the show?

You do? Well, regardless, allow me to remind you.

With Simmons at the trigger, the Sixers would drive the ball up the court and almost immediately kick the ball to Joel Embiid. Serving as Doc Rivers’ offensive fulcrum, Embiid would read the defense, look for a lane, and more often than not kick the ball out to Simmons, Seth Curry, or Tobias Harris to move the possession along. From there, the team would run a play, be that a pick and roll with Curry, a drive from Simmons, or some ISO from Harris, but if such a look wasn’t open, the ball would inevitably find its way back to Embiid with single-digit seconds left on the board to try to turn garbage into gold.

Because Embiid is Embiid, more often than not, it would result in points one way or another, but such a strategy became harder to incorporate come playoff time, when teams would collapse in an additional defender because they didn’t have to worry about Simmons as a shooter.

For many a fan, pundit, or outside observer, this was considered the Sixers’ biggest flaw. “Gosh, if only the Sixers had a point guard that could shoot, then they’d be elite.” From ESPN to FS1, Bleacher Report, The Ringer, SB Nation, and even here at FanSided many a writer theorized about what an Embiid-centric offense would look like with a lineup of four shooters plus the big fella in the middle.

Well, on Thursday night, fans finally got a glimpse of this hypothetical Heavenly state, and guess what? The offense didn’t look too different from the season before.

Mind you, in some situations, the Sixers’ offense was much improved. Both Tyrese Maxey and Shake Milton took shots that Ben Simmons would only attempt in a summer workout video and largely looked much improved over their initial run in Ontario, but at the five spot? The Sixers once again made things trickier for Embiid than they needed to be.

Much like in 2020-21, Embiid touched the ball on basically every possession he was on the court for and would routinely be given the ball later in the clock when one of the team’s shooters didn’t get the look they’d like. The team passed and passed and passed some more, sometimes hot potato-ing the ball as many as 10 times on a particular 24 seconds on the shot clock, but inevitably, the ball would end up back in Embiid’s hands.

But… why? Shouldn’t a Simmons-less offense run like a finely tuned machine, with ample spacing for Embiid to operate as he sees fit? Why is he still receiving the ball at the top of the key and having to dribble dribble dribble down into the paint while defenders look to disrupt his handle?

Simple: The Sixers don’t have a playmaker who can reliably get him the ball where he needs it.

As appreciated as the spacing both Milton and Maxey provided while playing alongside Embiid, neither possess the same prowess as a passer as the player they’re replacing and thus, made it so that the big fella had a harder time than he needed to to get advantageous looks under the basket versus Toronto’s tiny centers.

You see, that has been the Sixers’ biggest issue since Embiid made his debut back in 2016: The team has never had a point guard who can shoot and dish at an elite level. They’ve definitely had the latter in Simmons, but his offensive misfit with Embiid is long-established and historically horrible. They tried to procure the former when they drafted Markelle Fultz first overall, a move that would have set the Process up for success had it worked out, but otherwise, the team just hasn’t been able to secure a guard with that very unique and much-heralded set of skills.

Mind you, the team hasn’t been particularly on the lookout for such a player until very recently, as Simmons was not particularly keen on sharing the ball with Jimmy Butler during his abbreviated tenure with the team, but on paper, such a player would have fixed many an issue and is all but paramount in getting this next era of Sixers basketball off to a promising start.

*sigh* why didn’t Daryl Morey trade Al Horford for Chris Paul when he had the chance?

Could Tyrese Maxey one day become a superstar point guard? Sure, I don’t see why not, but he isn’t one right now, which is understandable since he wasn’t even a full-time point guard during his lone season at Kentucky. To keep the offense potent, Joel Embiid happy, and things rolling at a respectable clip without a million screens needed to get off a simple shot, Doc Rivers and the Philadelphia 76ers need to figure out a way to get their best player more touches in his natural habitat under the basket, which seems easy enough but has proven rather tricky over the past few seasons. Need I say anything more than the 2020 NBA playoffs?