The Sixers don’t think it’s time to tank. But Paul George says ‘we’ve shown no signs of a team that will compete.’
After trailing by as many as 50 against the Bulls, Tyrese Maxey said, “I’m never going to sit here and lace my shoes up and expect to lose.” But he admitted, “it’s hard to see a vision.”
Ricky Council IV leaped into the air and somehow traveled on a two-on-one fast break, prompting multiple NBA scouts to visibly and audibly chuckle from their baseline seats. Another hollered, “This is not Cleveland-Memphis last night” to a colleague, referencing a tight Sunday game played between the Eastern Conference-leading Cavaliers and playoff-bound Grizzlies.
The 76ers’ 142-110 loss to the Chicago Bulls on Monday night was the most disastrous in a 2024-25 season still shockingly full of them, given the opponent and circumstances. The Sixers face-planted an opportunity to move closer to a play-in spot that they came out of the All-Star break assuring they were still chasing. The result left coach Nick Nurse calling for his team to be more “professional,” and for standout forward Paul George to say the group has “shown no signs of a, forget championship, but a playoff-contending team.” And it all came in the bleak aftermath of the latest news that former MVP Joel Embiid, who did not play against the Bulls, was considering more options to treat his ongoing knee issue.
Yet whenever the “tanking” subject — a.k.a., deliberately pivoting from prioritizing winning to increasing their odds of keeping their draft pick, during these final 25 regular-season games — was subtly or blatantly broached by reporters late Monday, Nurse, George, and star point guard Tyrese Maxey did not want to entertain the idea that the team has already begun (or should more earnestly begin) to pack it in.
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“I’m never going to sit here and lace my shoes up and expect to lose,” Maxey said at his locker after the game. “That’s just not how I’m wired. It’s not how I play basketball. It’s not how I live my life. …
“It’s hard right now. It’s very difficult. It’s hard to see a vision. But we have a lot of games left, a lot of time left with each other.”
The 20-37 Sixers now sit 2½ games behind the 10th-place Bulls (23-35), and have the NBA’s sixth-worst record entering Tuesday. If they remain in that spot at the end of the regular season, they have a 46% chance of keeping their draft pick, which would go to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it lands seventh or lower in the lottery. The Sixers are two games “behind” the Toronto Raptors, who they play twice more this season, for the fifth-worst record.
The only reason there was not already more separation between the Sixers and Bulls was, before Monday, Chicago was losing nearly as frequently. The Bulls entered the game on a six-game skid, while the Sixers have now dropped eight in a row.
And Chicago made a more intentional move toward this fate, trading star Zach LaVine to the Sacramento Kings at the deadline earlier this month. Standout big man Nikola Vucevic, meanwhile, did not play Monday because of a calf injury, while point guard Lonzo Ball left the game late in the first half because of a gash on his head.
Bulls coach Billy Donovan was asked point blank during his pregame news conference about the belief from some outsiders that losing would be in his organization’s best interest, a conclusion he acknowledged he “totally [understands].”
Donovan, though, reminded that the draft is a gamble similar to recruiting high schoolers, which he spent more than 20 years doing while coaching college basketball at Kentucky, Marshall, and Florida before jumping to the NBA. He also believes resting healthy players — in effect, taking more purposeful steps toward losing — can set a poor example for younger and new teammates.
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“When we’ve spoken, whether it’s been with ownership or [the] front office,” Donovan said, “when we’ve all kind of collaborated together, like I’ve always mentioned from Day 1, there’s been a consensus that there’s an integrity to go out there [and try to win]. …
“There’s a responsibility we have, organizationally, to people to go out there and compete and do our very, very best. I get the other side of it. I do. But that’s kind of the stance we’ve taken.”
No such questions were proposed during Nurse’s pregame news conference, which was dominated by Embiid’s latest injury twist. When asked again after Monday’s drubbing why the Sixers do not simply shut down the big man for the remainder of the season, Nurse reiterated that they are “just not there yet as an organization.”
Maxey played Monday with his right little finger and ring finger taped together, after entering the game listed as questionable with a sprain. At one point, George was receiving injections in order to play recent games with a torn tendon in his left little finger. And during Monday’s contest, starting big man Guerschon Yabusele went to the locker room with injuries to both eyes, including a corneal abrasion, while tendinitis in Quentin Grimes’ right knee flared up.
Monday’s lopsided defeat occurred after the defending-champion Boston Celtics shellacked the Sixers in their first game out of the break. Then the Sixers allowed 40 first-quarter points against the Brooklyn Nets before rallying and then losing at the buzzer. The Sixers surrendered another 39 points in the opening period against a Chicago team that had ranked near the bottom of the NBA since the LaVine trade, prompting George to lament that “it baffles me just how easy we give up layups.” The Bulls’ lead ballooned to 50 points in the second half.
“We’ve shown no signs of a team that will compete,” George said. “And we just don’t have the habits [that] a playoff-contending team would have. To be honest, right now, it’s a little far-fetched. All we can do is work hard, try to just keep going for one another.”
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Added Nurse: “We’re just going to keep trying to fight. I’ve got to get them back on track. Got to get them together and keep playing. … We’ve got to look at ourselves in the mirror and get to work and be more professional, and go out there and give some effort and energy and play hard.”
Coincidentally, two of the Sixers’ newcomers have experienced where this dreadful season is now, and what it could become.
Reserve point guard Jared Butler was on a Washington Wizards team that knew it was tanking before this season even began, yet acknowledged that, for current players, “it’s hard, though, because your competitive side … it starts to fester.” Two-way forward David Roddy was on last season’s Grizzlies team that suffered horrible injury luck and finished 27-55, yet this season has swung back up to third in the West standings entering Tuesday. Before The Inquirer could even finish a question about the topic, Roddy nodded in agreement.
“It really causes a lot of mental resilience and growth,” Roddy said of what he learned during that time. “I think that’s the biggest thing is you kind of want to just get better every day and just try to go out and perform as much as you can. We all want to win games. That’s still the plan. That’s still the goal.
“We go out and compete. And if we don’t get the result that we want, we come back, learn from it, accept it, and move on from it.”
Perhaps the Nets, who were 7-3 in their last 10 games before an inexplicable loss at the Wizards on Monday, will pass the Sixers and Bulls to finish in 10th place. Despite trading productive rotation players Dennis Schroder and Dorian Finney-Smith (and star Mikal Bridges last summer), Brooklyn entered Tuesday at 21-36 and 1½ games behind Chicago — and twice beat the Sixers in the span of 11 days.
Before Monday’s game at the Wells Fargo Center, a person who works at the arena but has no official affiliation with the Sixers uttered to an Inquirer reporter that only 11 home games remained following the debacle against the Bulls. The spectators who still peppered the stands at the top of the fourth quarter saw the Sixers put a lineup of Butler, Roddy, Council, Jeff Dowtin Jr., and Lonnie Walker IV on the floor.
More such personnel groupings — and laughably lopsided scores — could unfold if this tailspin continues. When asked if he or his teammates can feel that this disastrous season is essentially a wrap, George said, “I don’t want to believe that. I don’t sense that in this locker room.”
And yet, in order for the Sixers to stage anything resembling a last-minute play-in push, George said, “We’ve got to want to do it.”
“Either you commit to put your body on the line,” George said, “or you don’t.”