I don’t think most people understand (or want to acknowledge, for some reason) how brutal our injury luck has been this season. I see a lot of angst towards Morey esp for not making a move, but take a look at the injuries and tell me if trading for some mid role player actually helps us in these games.
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Here’s a table of our team (sorted by Embiid then MPG for the season).
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|Player|Games Played|Games Missed|Record when they play|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Joel Embiid|33|12|26-7 (79%!)|
|Tyrese Maxey|42|3|29-13|
|Tobias Harris|42|3|29-13|
|De’Anthony Melton|33|12|22-11|
|Nicolas Batum|33|9\*|20-11|
|Kelly Oubre|31|14|23-10|
|Patrick Beverley|42|3|26-16|
|Marcus Morris|35|7\*|22-13|
|Paul Reed|45|0|29-16|
|Robert Covington|26|9\*\*|18-8|
\*got traded in season
\*\* got some DNP-CDs, won’t count that
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Need to add a huge caveat that the record when they play is basically only significant for Embiid (since he’s the only one actually driving most of these wins lol), but even the games we dropped with Joel was when we’ve had guys like Melton and Oubre out as well.
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But it’s been crazy. Only 45 games in, Embiid’s missed like 30% of the season, with two starters missing 12 and 9 games in Melton and Batum, our best bench player missing 14 games, and even guys like Morris and Roco getting up there in missed games.
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When we’re healthy (Embiid, Tyrese, Tobi all play and 2/3 of Melton, Batum and Kelly play), we’ve been **both a top 5 offense AND defense**, shoot well from the three, generate a lot of free throws and get to the basket at a good %. All these issues people have with the team aren’t *really* there until our lineups start getting decimated by injuries. (If you’re more interested in our team’s splits, can check [PBP stats and lineup data](https://www.pbpstats.com/wowy-combos/nba?TeamId=1610612755&Season=2023-24&SeasonType=Regular%2BSeason&PlayerIds=202699,203954,1630178,1629001&OnlyCommonGames=true))
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We’ve had the worst injury luck across all playoff teams. There are teams who’ve had even worse luck (ie: Memphis), but they’re well out of the race. Only comparable team is Dallas, whose also had a slew of injuries, but their record has been considerably worse than ours. 29-16 is an okay record, but given context it’s actually pretty good lol….
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My main point here is: trading for some mid role player like most the fanbase wants would have changed NOTHING in these games lol. Bojan is winning us maybe one or two more games (and we’d trade a first), similar with Tyus Jones (and neither raise our ceiling enough to even compete with Boston in a 7 game series). maybe Daryl’s waiting for a move that’ll never be there, but I at least understand waiting it out to see if a Mikal Bridges or a Lauri Markannen would be available (or even if someone like Dejounte’s price goes down).
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Source: Statmuse for most ([https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/sixers-record-with-each-player-this-season](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/sixers-record-with-each-player-this-season))
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by Thegrandmistressofoz
5 Comments
Morey knows what he’s doing
You’re doing the Lord’s work.
I agree with all of this (and while of course appreciate the work, it should be obvious to everyone). The issue is that it’s seriously starting to jeopardize our seeding to lead us into a result we are all familiar with…
This is a good team but let’s not kid ourselves, they’re not as good as Boston and Milwaukee. I’m also not confident they would beat NY, Indiana, Cleveland and Miami in a series. This team doesn’t shoot enough 3s. Maxey is the only volume shooter and he hasn’t been good from 3 for a while now. This team needs more firepower.
If you look at the team and how they match up against the best teams it isnt good enough. Who on our team guards tatum. If its the same guys that did last year, kiss a championship goodbye. Hows are spacing? Terrible since our best shooters constantly have the ball in their hand.
Being good because embiid is incredible isnt enough because in the playoffs teams will adjust to shut embiid down, even target him to try and injure him. His usage is too high and teams have never won with a player having a usage this high. At the very least, 1 good wing defender and either a let it spray shooter or a PG and moving maxey offball more is needed