Can Warriors, Grizzlies provide blueprint on how the Sixers can claw out of a disastrous, injury-riddled season?

Before the reporter could even finish the question, David Roddy began nodding in agreement.

The 76ers’ former two-way forward had only been in Philly about a week at that point. But he immediately recognized a “series of unfortunate events” that plagued the Sixers. It was similar to last season’s Memphis Grizzlies, whose roster he was on until the trade deadline.

“We went through a ton of stuff [in Memphis],” Roddy told The Inquirer from the Sixers’ locker room last week “ … [The coaches] did a great job of just keeping us day-to-day and keeping us present.”

With the Sixers coming down the stretch of a miserable lost season — and with former MVP Joel Embiid’s ongoing knee issue presenting an uncertain long-term picture — it is reasonable to wonder if this era of the franchise is cooked. Yet there are some recent examples of successful teams that slogged through what turned out to be disastrous one-year hiccups — while snagging a top-10 draft pick in the process — before righting themselves relatively quickly.

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The Grizzles’ 27-55 record last season sandwiched a 2022-23 in which they were one of the league’s up-and-comers and the Western Conference’s No. 2 seed, and this season, when they were a top-four seed entering Tuesday. The Golden State Warriors provide an even starker example. They went from winning three NBA titles from 2015 to 2018, to holding a league-worst 15-50 record in the COVID-shortened 2019-20 season, to building back to a 2022 championship.

Though Warriors coach Steve Kerr and veteran big man Kevon Looney were blunt about the challenges when asked Saturday to reflect about that season, they also recognized the ways they squeezed value out of the experience.

“The whole time, it [stinks],” Looney told The Inquirer following Saturday’s shootaround at the Wells Fargo Center. “Losing [stinks], especially when you know you have the talent to be something good. You have an expectation coming into the season, and it goes completely the opposite way.

“You’ve got to start focusing on small things and getting the smaller wins. And, in turn, you start getting wins here and there that kind of help you keep pushing forward — that all the stuff that we’re practicing on are actually paying off.”

Those Warriors and Grizzlies made their pivots much earlier in the season, compared to the Sixers, who continue to publicly maintain that they are vying for the East’s final play-in spot — even after officially announcing Friday that Embiid would miss the rest of the season.

Memphis star point guard Ja Morant was suspended for the first 25 games of 2023-24 after multiple instances of flashing a gun on social media, then sustained a shoulder injury that January that sidelined him for the rest of the season. Key guards Desmond Bane and Marcus Smart also missed significant time. By the end of the season, the Grizzlies had set NBA records for players used (33), starting lineups (51), and total games lost because of injuries (578) in one season.

The 2019-20 Warriors, meanwhile, had already lost superstar Kevin Durant in a July 2019 sign-and-trade, had traded crucial role player Andre Iguodala to (coincidentally) the Grizzlies, and knew they would be without All-Star sharpshooter Klay Thompson, who suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament during that summer’s NBA Finals. Then, in the fourth game of the regular season, future Hall of Famer Stephen Curry broke his hand.

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“We didn’t have a choice,” Kerr said during Saturday’s pregame news conference. “There was no switch [to flip].”

Tactically, Kerr shifted to focusing on player development. That meant youngsters such as Jordan Poole received more playing time but still were held accountable for blunders such as a missed defensive rotation. The Warriors traded at the deadline for Andrew Wiggins, who used that initial time to acclimate to the Warriors’ motion offense before becoming an All-Star and crucial part of the 2022 title team. Even Looney said he utilized that season to work on his jumper, switching out to guard smaller players, and other elements that “when you’re chasing a championship, you might not have time for error.”

“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, the season’s a waste. Just go out there and do what you want,’” Looney said. “We still had to play in our concepts. We still [were] playing the right way.”

Perhaps more important for both teams was maintaining the daily culture inside the facility and locker room, which Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins said was “never a defeated mentality. It’s never a woe-is-me mentality.” Looney added that the Warriors’ joy — the intangible hallmark of their dynasty — continued trickling down from Kerr and Curry.

“Even though [Curry] wasn’t playing, he still was around rehabbing [and] he was still carrying himself with that joy,” Looney said. “And when someone’s setting that standard of excellence, you kind of have to follow it.”

Added Kerr: “It’s probably more important when you’re losing than when you’re winning, when you’re really beaten down like you were that year. … You want to keep energized, and then you lose six in a row, and it’s miserable. So that’s the biggest challenge as a coaching staff [and] organization: How do you maintain a really strong culture in the midst of disappointment night after night?”

A high draft pick was the “prize” for those woeful records — with vastly different results.

The Grizzlies last summer used the ninth overall selection on Zach Edey, the two-time national college player of the year who has been one of the stronger rookie performers this season. Golden State, meanwhile, used the 2020 second overall pick on James Wiseman, a big man who was selected in between now-league faces Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball and ahead of future All-Stars Tyrese Haliburton and Tyrese Maxey. That illustrates the risk and uncertainty of the draft, which Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan highlighted last week when asked about the outside belief that his team should transition into full “tank” mode after trading star Zach LaVine at the February deadline.

(And don’t forget: the Sixers’ 2025 first-round draft pick will go to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it lands below sixth in the lottery, thanks to the 2020 Al Horford trade.)

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Key differences also exist between the Sixers’ current conundrum and the Warriors’ or Grizzlies’ situations.

The Warriors had long established their championship pedigree, while the Sixers have not advanced past the playoffs’ second round since 2001. Curry’s broken hand also did not come with the longer-term concerns of Embiid’s knee, which has undergone multiple surgeries and continued to swell this season before he opted to shut down and determine the best treatment and rehab path.

The Grizzlies, meanwhile, boast a much younger core of Morant, Bane, and Jaren Jackson, who injured his ankle in the team’s Monday night loss to the Atlanta Hawks. Meanwhile, the Sixers have Embiid, who turns 31 later this month, and Paul George, who turns 35 in May, on max contracts.

Still, those teams are examples that it is possible to turn a disastrous season into a temporary glitch. Looking back, Kerr said he was “actually proud” of the way his Warriors handled that season — and then clawed out of it.

“It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t fun,” Looney said. “But we just tried to carry ourselves and tried to find the joy.”