Per +/-, no superstar let down by teammates more than Embiid

[blargh]

While I don't think you can deny Embiid's greatness, I do think he's been a central piece in some late game collapses. His inability to make sound decisions with the ball when pressure rises has prevented us from stabilizing leads. Not sure if we have any data to see Embiid's +/- in the final 5 minutes of the game compared to the first 43?

I took a look here, scanning different seasons, but didn’t try to do a more proper analysis: https://www.nba.com/stats/player/203954/traditional?SeasonType=Playoffs&Split=clutch

My take: it’s too small of sample size to make much of a conclusion. He’s had years where his +/- was better in clutch minutes than the rest of the time; he’s had years where it’s worse. This past year it was worse, so I guess it stands out in memory.

[LeonJordanJr24]

Sixers will thrive with hungry scorers Reggie,Eric Gordan ,Caleb and Oubre love to pick up the slack. They all are irrationally confident unlike Tobias and Simmons was.... Embiid needs players like this. Cus it gets ugly but they don't shrink....

[ivysixer2000]

I'm banned on the GB lol

I'm not banned!! I might post it, although I have never posted there or even looked at it, so that's the reason.

My username stands out too much as an obvious Sixer fan. Plus I'm not a fan of drama.

[Sixersftw]

I'm banned on the GB lol

I'm not banned!! I might post it, although I have never posted there or even looked at it, so that's the reason.

My username stands out too much as an obvious Sixer fan. Plus I'm not a fan of drama.

There's no point posting positive Embiid content there or r/NBA. The anti-embiid circle jerk is crazy rn. I don't even think it was this bad with prime Harden.

[Kolkmania]

While I don't think you can deny Embiid's greatness, I do think he's been a central piece in some late game collapses. His inability to make sound decisions with the ball when pressure rises has prevented us from stabilizing leads. Not sure if we have any data to see Embiid's +/- in the final 5 minutes of the game compared to the first 43?

I took a look here, scanning different seasons, but didn’t try to do a more proper analysis: https://www.nba.com/stats/player/203954/traditional?SeasonType=Playoffs&Split=clutch

My take: it’s too small of sample size to make much of a conclusion. He’s had years where his +/- was better in clutch minutes than the rest of the time; he’s had years where it’s worse. This past year it was worse, so I guess it stands out in memory.

Yeah especially if you filter it for playoffs it gets to a really, really small sample size.

If you include regular season, the difference is quite big. However, I can imagine that this is the case for the majority of the players (no time to check it), because the games against bottom seeders are more often blowouts and will therefore not count in "clutch games".

[Mik317]

the crunch time issues come from our general predictability added to Biid's low stamina. As he gets tired, he becomes more predictable as its either a contested jumper or a slow post up into an obvious grift attempt lol. The other team can time up the former and refs especially in the playoffs don't fall for the tricks for the latter. Add on the fact that we also often struggle to get him the ball thus the play generally starts with 8 secs on the clock lol.

Jokic despite being a fat king, is never sped up and is too good of a passer to double and EVEN then Murray often is the closer. Giannis' losses have generally come from the fact that his HB dive play is also predictable. Then there is the sad fact that closing in the NBA is generally hitting what technically are just bad bail out shots and thats harder to do for a giant lumbering oaf lol.

The issue is that Maxey is also pretty predictable in those spots and while I am not sure the stats back it up I feel like he has been lowkey awful in the clutch. PG's stats says he is pretty good there tho so maybe he takes on that role.

[Stanford]

The issue is that Maxey is also pretty predictable in those spots.

He won't be this year. His mid range game is going to be sick and he's going to completely take responsibility for that portion of the game. I have zero doubts he will succeed.

[Mik317]

thats the best part of Maxey

he has constantly proved me wrong.

[ivysixer2000]

That is the next step for Maxey, I remember when he first played for us and he used the floater almost too much. I guess he started talking to Harden too much, trying to draw fouls and he stopped doing it.

Since we have PG, I really think the crutch time situation will be better since he can always get a shot off unlike the Maxey we saw last year. I expect Maxey to improve once again which will be great for us, his game will always be about speed but I really would like to see some hurky jerky Brunson like play from him.

[M2J]

That is the next step for Maxey, I remember when he first played for us and he used the floater almost too much. I guess he started talking to Harden too much, trying to draw fouls and he stopped doing it.

Since we have PG, I really think the crutch time situation will be better since he can always get a shot off unlike the Maxey we saw last year. I expect Maxey to improve once again which will be great for us, his game will always be about speed but I really would like to see some hurky jerky Brunson like play from him.

Specifically if Joel buys into setting good screens, being a finisher off of those screens like shooting or actually rolling, and getting rebounds on both ends... They'll be fine. I trust PG and Tyrese if Joel is willing to be a dominant big guy.... Joel can have double digit scoring 4ths if he plays that way and stays active.

[TTP]

Looking at basketballreference, the Sixers are also 1-18 when Embiid is -2 or worse. They basically don't win ever if he has a negative game.

Compare that to this list of guys that make up all of the championship #1 options of the last decade or so - obviously any team is going to struggle when their best player is losing his minutes but a lot of these guys are having teammates step up to clutch games:

LeBron: 10-82
KD: 4-50
Kawhi: 7-43
Curry: 5-35
Tatum: 2-36
Giannis: 6-24
Jokic: 2-26

Out of these guys, Tatum, KD, and maybe Jokic are comparable but in the aggregate, all of these guys total 36-296, averaging over twice the win % of Embiid. Kawhi especially has a reputation as a playoff crusher, especially after what we saw in 2019, but he has the most help on this list and his career playoff on-offs aren't spectacular.

[76ciology]

Was it also partly because Jimmy Butler, James Harden, Ben Simmons and Tyrese Maxey are not good enough to carry the second unit?

If we have traded the second star for more depth? Would things be better?

[blargh]

Was it also partly because Jimmy Butler, James Harden, Ben Simmons and Tyrese Maxey are not good enough to carry the second unit?

If we have traded the second star for more depth? Would things be better?

NBA teams aren’t usually playing with hockey style shifts. Those guys all played enough minutes with starters.

You could argue that Joel is such a unique player that needs to be built around that when he sits, it’s hard for the rest of the team to completely adjust the offense.

[Mik317]

we often had a lot of guys who can only exist off of Biid (or Ben). Thats why when they sit or sucked or both somehow.. the team would just fall apart. Ironically tho that is why Ben was pretty good without Biid because the guys who needed Biid also needed his skillset. Now when Biid sits, there is no offense hub to run the sets we run and its left to the remaining guys to manufacture offense. Defensively its even worse since our whole defense seems to be Biid pls clean up everything lol....again not a full issue with Ben at times

again Maxey hopefully grows into that as a guy who can at least keep the team afloat but a lot of his game is predicated on the defense at least having to think about guarding someone else. Teams would just trap him and force Tobias or Oubre to make decisions which...yeah. Hopefully PG even at this stage of his career still has enough juice to make that harder. Harden as a set up guy alone made it harder to do so for example.

Your team is always going to get worse without your best player on the floor. Its just that ours feel like it gets process level bad lately.

[76ciology]

Was it also partly because Jimmy Butler, James Harden, Ben Simmons and Tyrese Maxey are not good enough to carry the second unit?

If we have traded the second star for more depth? Would things be better?

NBA teams aren’t usually playing with hockey style shifts. Those guys all played enough minutes with starters.

You could argue that Joel is such a unique player that needs to be built around that when he sits, it’s hard for the rest of the team to completely adjust the offense.

Yes, but don't our non-Embiid minutes usually have our second-best player leading or playing with our five-man unit on the floor? So, in some ways, our second-best player has a lot of opportunity to ensure that those non-Embiid lineups perform well.

Maybe it's just recency bias, but I recall Maxey struggling to generate good offense and maintain leads when leading the five-man unit without Embiid in the Knicks series. This often forced us to play Embiid for the entire game.

[blargh]

Was it also partly because Jimmy Butler, James Harden, Ben Simmons and Tyrese Maxey are not good enough to carry the second unit?

If we have traded the second star for more depth? Would things be better?

NBA teams aren’t usually playing with hockey style shifts. Those guys all played enough minutes with starters.

You could argue that Joel is such a unique player that needs to be built around that when he sits, it’s hard for the rest of the team to completely adjust the offense.

Yes, but don't our non-Embiid minutes usually have our second-best player leading or playing with our five-man unit on the floor? So, in some ways, our second-best player has a lot of opportunity to ensure that those non-Embiid lineups perform well.

Maybe it's just recency bias, but I recall Maxey struggling to generate good offense and maintain leads when leading the five-man unit without Embiid in the Knicks series. This often forced us to play Embiid for the entire game.

Yes, our second-best player let us down in those minutes, so I think the solution is to upgrade our second-best player (like we’ve done), not trade him for more depth which would by definition make the second-best player worse?

[Sixerscan]

Was it also partly because Jimmy Butler, James Harden, Ben Simmons and Tyrese Maxey are not good enough to carry the second unit?

If we have traded the second star for more depth? Would things be better?

It didn't really happen with Harden fwiw. If you look at the list of the crazy +/- losses, they all happened before and after Harden was here.

They actually had a solid record when Embiid was out the full Harden year, then they were basically net neutral with Embiid on or off in the playoffs including winning games at Brooklyn and at Boston without him.

Then this year they didn't have lineups that made sense without Embiid because they traded Harden for role players/didn't really try to put the best team possible together because they had an eye towards the cap space plan. Especially once Tobias fell off a cliff. Reed specifically really missed Harden spoon feeding him. Melton being out also played a role. You can blame Maxey if you want but IDK how many guys in the league you could put with the 4 guys he was playing with and not get blown off the court in a playoff game. Maybe he'll get there eventually.

Hoping with George and Drummond and others they can put together better lineups.

I don't have a good explanation for what the hell happened in 2019. Other than I guess they were playing Greg Monroe who was playing in I believe Germany the next season. To some extent it was probably just weird shooting luck.