Sixers Shouldn’t Panic Despite 0-2 Start To 2022-23 NBA Season

The Philadelphia 76ers entered the 2022-23 NBA season with championship aspirations. After adding P.J. Tucker, De’Anthony Melton, Danuel House Jr. and Montrezl Harrell this offseason, they appeared to be on the short list of legitimate title contenders.

Season-opening losses to the Boston Celtics (126-117) on Tuesday and Khris Middleton-less Milwaukee Bucks (90-88) on Thursday sent the Sixers crashing back to earth a bit. But despite their 0-2 start, it’s far too early to panic about their legitimacy as a contender this year.

If anything, those two close losses showed more signs of hope than reasons for despair.

It’s unfair to call either game a “schedule loss,” as the Sixers had plenty of chances to win both. Their turnovers and lackluster transition defense caused their downfall at Boston, while their lack of offensive cohesion plagued them against Milwaukee. Those foibles are understandable given the circumstances, though.

Four of the Sixers players who saw floor time against Boston and Milwaukee are new to Philadelphia this year, while the Celtics and Bucks largely brought back the same key pieces. Malcolm Brogdon and Noah Vonleh were the only new Celtics players to play more than eight minutes on Tuesday, and every Bucks rotation player was in Milwaukee last year, too.

It takes time for players to develop chemistry, especially on defense. With the Sixers switching liberally, particularly against Boston, breakdowns are inevitable at this early stage of the season. They showed significant progress in that regard against Milwaukee, though, which is a small silver lining in an otherwise disappointing loss.

The bigger story is the early-season returns on their biggest unanswered question heading into the year: What version of James Harden would they get?

The Return of ‘Houston Harden’

When the Sixers traded for Harden in a blockbuster deal at last February’s trade deadline, the results didn’t quite live up to expectations. Harden averaged 21.0 points, 10.5 assists and 7.1 rebounds in 21 regular-season games with the Sixers, but he shot only 40.2 percent from the field and 32.6 percent from three-point range.

More concerningly, he lacked the off-the-dribble burst that made him one of the league’s most feared scorers over the past decade with the Houston Rockets.

After the Sixers’ season-ending loss to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Semifinals last year, star center Joel Embiid said the Houston version of Harden wasn’t coming back.

“Since we got him, everybody expected the Houston James Harden,” Embiid told reporters. “But that’s not who he is anymore. He’s more of a playmaker.”

Through the first two games of this season, the Sixers have gotten the best of both worlds. Harden had 35 points on 9-of-14 shooting, eight rebounds and seven assists against the Celtics, and he almost single-handedly kept the team afloat against Milwaukee in the second half. He wound up finishing with 31 points on 13-of-24 shooting, nine assists and eight rebounds despite shooting only 1-of-7 from deep.

Last season, Harden was largely a two-trick pony offensively. Of his 286 regular-season field-goal attempts with the Sixers, nearly half were above-the-break three-pointers (133), and the majority of the rest were in the restricted area (76) and in the paint (54). He attempted only 15 mid-range shots in those 21 games.

This year, Harden has diversified his shot diet. Of his 38 shot attempts, he’s still favoring above-the-break three-pointers (15), the restricted area (six) and in the paint (eight), but he already has eight mid-range attempts as well. That unpredictability will make him far more difficult to defend in isolation and should cause defenders to shade more help toward him as well, freeing up opportunities for his teammates.

After the Bucks game, Harden told reporters that becoming less predictable was an area of focus for him this offseason.

“Just giving defenses different looks—having a variety, a package of things that you can go to,” he said. “Not being so predictable. For me, just trying to keep the defense on their heels.”

The results have been stark in the early going.

The Sixers can’t—and shouldn’t—rely on Harden to score 30-plus points per game moving forward. But the early-season eye test suggests that the Houston version of Harden might not be permanently gone quite yet.

Where Art Thou, Joel Embiid?

The Sixers’ biggest cause for concern this far is the lackluster play of Embiid. The two-time MVP runner-up finished with decent numbers against Boston (26 points on 9-of-18 shooting, 15 rebounds and five assists), but he had a night to forget against Milwaukee (15 points on 6-of-21 shooting, 12 rebounds, three assists and four turnovers).

This isn’t the first time Embiid has started off the season slow. Last year, he averaged only 21.4 points on 43.5 percent shooting across his first nine games before he landed in the league’s health-and-safety protocols. He then had 42 points and 14 rebounds in his first game back, and he proceeded to average 31.8 points and 12.0 rebounds over his final 58 regular-season games.

Embiid knocked knees with New Orleans Pelicans center Jonas Valanciunas in the season-opener last year, which hampered him over the first few weeks. On Friday, Sixers head coach Doc Rivers told reporters that Embiid had a bout of plantar fasciitis this offseason, which may be affecting his conditioning early on.

Embiid has been noticeably slow with his decision-making and dissection of double-teams in particular, but he has markedly improved at both of those things in recent years. As he works his way back into game shape, it stands to reason that he’ll soon begin to resemble the MVP candidate of the past few years.

Despite their improved supporting cast, the Sixers will still go only as far as Embiid and Harden will take them. Embiid is their defensive linchpin and the primary hub of their offense, while Harden is by far the best playmaker on the team. The Sixers do need to find ways to involve others more—particularly Tyrese Maxey—and they need to figure out which combinations of players work best with one another, too. That will come in time.

“We’re 0-2,” Harden said after Thursday’s loss. “We need to play better. But this is a long year, you know what I mean? If we weren’t playing well but we won, we wouldn’t be happy, either. We’ve just gotta lock in, be more engaged on both ends of the ball. Defensively, we’ve gotta hang our hats on that, and on offense, we’ve just gotta get as many quality shots as we can and we’ll be good.”

Upcoming games against the rebuilding San Antonio Spurs and Indiana Pacers should help the Sixers find their footing before a two-game road trip against the Toronto Raptors next week. No matter the results, the Sixers should use these early-season games to continue experimenting with their new-look rotation and building upon their offensive and defensive schemes.

If the Sixers are this disjointed on both ends of the floor in mid-April, it’ll be five-alarm-fire time in Philadelphia. Until then, they have 80 more regular-season games to work out the kinks before the playoffs begin.