Sixers’ injuries turned a highly anticipated season into a disaster. How will they move forward?

ATLANTA — Deflating. Frustrating. Embarrassing.

What other words can describe the 76ers’ season?

Does it matter that Joel Embiid played only 19 games before being shut down with an ailing left knee? Or that Paul George’s season ended because of procedures on his left groin and left knee? What if the Sixers didn’t have an average of 10 players sidelined in recent games while tanking?

We’ll never know. Even if healthy, one could argue that the Sixers still would lose to the Cleveland Cavaliers and defending champion Boston Celtics in an Eastern Conference playoff series.

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But what we do know is this is the Sixers’ worst season since finishing with a league and franchise second-worst record of 10-72 in the 2015-16 season. That season, and the turmoil surrounding it, cost Sam Hinkie his job as the team’s general manager.

One has to wonder if any jobs are in jeopardy this season, since this campaign could be considered worse.

We all knew Hinkie was in the third season of what turned out to be a four-year tank. He just was, unfortunately for him, too good at his job. And the Sixers’ blatant tanking turned them into a laughingstock and an embarrassment to ownership.

But things were supposed to be different under Daryl Morey, now in his fifth season as team president of basketball operations.

The Sixers fired coach Doc Rivers on May 16, 2023, after second-round playoff losses in each of his three seasons in Philly.

They upgraded from Rivers, who led the Boston Celtics to the 2008 NBA title, with Nick Nurse, who led the Toronto Raptors to the 2019 title.

Yet the Sixers advanced to last year’s playoffs through the play-in tournament, only to suffer a first-round loss to the New York Knicks.

» READ MORE: Nick Nurse is an easy scapegoat. But it’d be wrong to lay this dismal Sixers season at his feet.

And in what has been one of their most-anticipated seasons, the Sixers find themselves with a 23-47 record. They’ve lost 20 of their last 24 games entering Sunday’s contest against the Atlanta Hawks at State Farm Arena. And they were tied with Brooklyn for the league’s fifth-worst record until the Nets lost to the Indiana Pacers on Saturday.

“It’s certainly disappointing,” Nurse said. “There’s no doubt about it. You mentioned it: You got expectations. You got some good players, and we don’t seem to have much luck, health-wise, and [that] never really ended. There was only really two stretches that you remained hopeful, the December [stretch], picking up games, going 10-3.”

Their second stretch came in January, with Embiid sidelined and George playing in just the first two games, the Sixers won four straight before taking the Denver Nuggets and Celtics to the limit in heartbreaking losses.

“Again, you were thinking, ‘OK, we got some guys out. If they come back, we can put something together,’” Nurse said. “And it just seemed like every time we built any momentum, we’d lose multiple, multiple players. I always said Joel, obviously, is the focal point of our team on both ends of the floor. But what really made it hard was just the sheer numbers, five, six guys-plus, out many, many games. So, obviously, disappointing.

“And like I said before, hopefully everybody can get healthy as soon as possible and get back and have good summertime prep and all that stuff.”

The problem is the Sixers invested heavily in Embiid, George, and Tyrese Maxey at a time when teams are shying away from having three maximum-salary players.

» READ MORE: Center of chaos: If the Sixers can’t quit Joel Embiid, they’ll forever remain in free fall

While Nurse is hopeful about next season, Embiid and George have extensive injury histories. So things are far from guaranteed to improve. The duo’s lack of mobility could be indicative of who they’ve become as players. But the Sixers are stuck with their hard-to-trade salaries over the next several seasons.

And as Nurse said, a lot of what the Sixers do is centered on Embiid.

They could be in deep trouble if his left knee issues persist.

But this season was doomed from the start because of their reliance on him. And things have been spiraling in a disastrous direction since Embiid announced during training camp that he wasn’t ready to practice or play.