CAMDEN, N.J. — Joel Embiid has never played more than 68 games in an NBA season. The prevailing logic, under the label of knee management, is that he won’t get close to that number this year, either.
When Embiid is not on the floor, the 76ers must find ways to consistently win games. The disparity last year – 31-8 with Embiid, 16-27 without – made that clear as the club embarked on an offseason rebuild, bolstering the second unit and finding depth in the paint.
One possible solution gaining traction this preseason is pace. The new Sixers are, top to bottom, more athletic, more capable of pushing the ball and maybe, able to win games by outrunning teams.
Nick Nurse succeeded in speeding up the team last year: It ranked 18th in the NBA in possessions per game at 97.5. That was an improvement over two very slow years under Doc Rivers, ranking 25th and 27th in the league.
Nurse isn’t a pace absolutist. His Raptors ranked 11th in the league in 2019-20, then 27th two years later. When Nurse’s Raptors beat the Sixers in a seven-game playoff series on the way to the title in 2019, those teams ranked 14th and eighth, respectively, in pace.
Pace is a balance of how a team wants to play and who a team has to play. The Sixers won’t race up and down the court with the lumbering Embiid. But given his unprecedented range, their efficiency in the half-court makes up for fewer possessions. The talk of pace this preseason may well be a veiled way to state that Tyrese Maxey’s style will dictate the offense more regularly than Embiid’s.
In the past, it’s been a question of what the Sixers will do if Embiid misses time.
This year, it’s been framed as, when Embiid is nursing his body through the NBA marathon, what else can the team do? With the likes of Maxey, Paul George, Eric Gordon and others, the easiest answer might be speeding the game up.
“Tyrese is fast, I’m fast,” Kelly Oubre said Monday. “PG is fast. Caleb (Martin) is fast. EG is fast. We just have a fast-paced, athletic team, and I thrive in playing in a high-speed, high-paced game. So I think that really benefits me, the style of pace that we’re playing at now.”
The 76ers, broadly, sought to get deeper and more athletic (though not necessarily younger) in the offseason. The result was a collection of players of a variety of styles.
The new additions’ recent past in terms of pace is mixed. Gordon’s Phoenix Suns were 15th in the league in pace last year, though he was part of a very bad 2021-22 Houston team that nonetheless was the league’s second quickest. (Gordon and the Rockets played fast in 2019-20 with James Harden, who became a key culprit in the recent languorous 76ers.) George’s Clippers were 20th in pace last year. Reggie Jackson’s Nuggets, moving at the speed of Nikola Jokic, were 26th. Martin comes from the deliberate, spread-the-floor Heat (29th in pace).
Pace is more than just fastbreaks, an area in which the 76ers were actually quite good last year. They finished second in turnover percentage, third in points off turnovers (17.7 per game) and second in fewest points allowed off turnovers (14.4). Bulking up the frontcourt with Martin, Andre Drummond and Guerschon Yabusele fixes the glaring weakness of rebounding and offers another outlet for fast offense.
“That’s my game,” Drummond said. “I hate standing still. I don’t want to just be playing in the dunker (spot), and just waiting around for a first shot to be put up. I like to move around and run. So this system really works out into my favor.”
For years, dating to JJ Redick’s cameo in The Process, the Sixers have talked about the challenge of spacing around Embiid. Pace is a corollary discussion, avoiding half-court situations in which the Sixers could get bogged down by jetting into fast offense.
“We’re playing a lot faster now,” said reserve guard Jeff Dowtin, who played 12 games with the Sixers last year and played for Nurse in Toronto. “The ball has been moving from side to side. We get into the paint and are shooting a lot more 3s now.”
“It felt good for me,” added guard KJ Martin. “Tyrese gets it up and down the floor fast, so that benefits me a lot. Just me playing with pace and speed, it helps me a lot, not just me scoring, but just being aggressive, getting into the paint and kicking out, getting it to guys for shots and stuff like that.”
None of this is going to be a revolution. The Sixers won’t be last year’s Pacers. They don’t need to move quickly to cover up a systematic talent deficit. Instead, they’re trying to fulfill the buzzword of media day a month ago. With veterans and youth, with NBA champions and title chasers, the guys like Maxey on the up and veterans like Gordon and Jackson who are valuable rotation assets, the club is diverse. The hope is it will translate into being versatile.
And nothing screams versatility more than solving the puzzle of how to win without Embiid.
“We have a lot of guys who can do a lot of things,” Martin said. “I think any of our wings, if we get the rebound, we can take a couple of dribbles, pass it up. If Tyrese gets rebounds, obviously he can take it and go. So I think that helps a lot, just having a bunch of guys on the court who can do a little bit of everything.”
Contact Matthew De George at [email protected].
