Sixers Face Dilemma: Push for Playoffs or Tank for Draft Lottery

The Sixers were supposed to have a shot at a championship this season. 

Philadelphia signed nine-time All-Star Paul George to bolster its core led by former MVP Joel Embiid and All-Star Tyrese Maxey. The team brought back 2020 Coach of the Year Nick Nurse, signed a few veteran role players (Eric Gordon, Andre Drummond), and picked up Jared McCain in the draft.

It followed a similar blueprint to the NFL’s Eagles, its next-door neighbors in downtown Philadelphia, who are now in the Super Bowl. 

But the Sixers have gone the opposite way. Embiid has played just 13 games, George is having his worst scoring season in more than a decade, and injuries have plagued Maxey and McCain.

Amid the disastrous first half of the season, however, Philadelphia isn’t out of playoff contention yet. The Sixers are 11th in the Eastern Conference, a game and a half out of the last play-in spot. And since the team is built to compete now, it could aspire for a play-in push, especially if Embiid is able to play consistently.

But the Sixers could consider going in the complete opposite direction, call it a lost season, and embrace a tank. The 2025 NBA draft is projected to be a deep class, but the Sixers will receive their pick only if they fall in the top six. Otherwise, the No. 1–seeded Thunder will take their pick, which they acquired for taking on Al Horford’s contract in 2020.

The Sixers currently have the eighth-best odds to win the lottery and are four games ahead of the Raptors, who have the sixth-worst record in the league.

There is precedent for other contending teams that essentially took a one-year sabbatical and nabbed a lottery pick, but the results have been mixed. The Warriors finished 15–50 in 2020, a year after making the Finals, due to injuries to Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, and selected James Wiseman with the No. 2 pick. The Grizzlies selected Zach Edey with the No. 9 pick in 2024 after the team won 24 fewer games last season as Ja Morant played just nine games. Edey has started 26 games for Memphis this year.

With the trade deadline just over a week away (Feb. 6), Philadelphia has to decide soon what its direction will be for the remainder of the year, or it may find itself trapped where it is now: outside the playoffs and projected to lose its first-round pick.

Bob Myers to the Rescue?

According to The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Sixers GM Daryl Morey could potentially be replaced by former Warriors GM and current ESPN NBA analyst Bob Myers. Simmons cited Myers’s previous experience with Sixers owner Josh Harris. Myers was on the advisory committee for the GM and head coach search of the Commanders, the NFL team Harris purchased in 2023.

“There’s been some Bob Myers Philly buzz that I think has been building because I think he had a good experience with Josh Harris,” Simmons said Friday on The Bill Simmons Podcast.

It’s unclear how much traction there is to Simmons’s report. Last year, he claimed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was interested in purchasing the Celtics, but that claim was shot down days later by The Information.