Billy Cunningham: Sixers have plenty of questions
You have to give 76ers coach Brett Brown some love. At the beginning of the season, folks raved over the Sixers' potential. They were banking on Ben Simmons, and the first overall draft pick got hurt. For weeks, he didn't know about the status of Joel Embiid, and truthfully, he still doesn't.
You have to give 76ers coach Brett Brown some love.
At the beginning of the season, folks raved over the Sixers' potential. They were banking on Ben Simmons, and the first overall draft pick got hurt. For weeks, he didn't know about the status of Joel Embiid, and truthfully, he still doesn't.
Yet, even with all that, the Sixers still headed into Saturday night's game against Detroit Pistons at the Wells Fargo Center with a 23-38 record. That's impressive, considering they had won a combined 28 games over the previous two seasons.
Obviously, we have seen better basketball, which would make people think the Sixers are on the upswing. And they are.
However, there are still a number of questions that need to be answered.
"It's hard to put your hand around what your nucleus is and how you are going to build out from that point," said Billy Cunningham, a Sixers legend as a player and a coach.
Cunningham is right.
There's a lot more uncertainty surrounding the franchise compared to Cunningham's glory days with the Sixers as a player and as head coach.
The Hall of Famer played nine seasons for the Sixers. He teamed up with three other Hall of Famers in Wilt Chamberlain, Chet Walker, and Hal Greer to lead the Sixers to the 1966-67 NBA title.
Cunningham later had a successful coaching career with the Sixers, winning no fewer than 50 games in any of his eight seasons. He coached the team to the 1983 NBA title.
"I was fortunate to have a Julius Erving, and we were able to build out from there," Cunningham said. "Then Moses [Malone] came along. That's how [role player] Marc Iavaroni fit so beautifully to that situation.
"So you need that core."
Once a team has that, it can decide how it wants to play. Right now, the biggest question mark surrounding the Sixers is health.
One paper, Joel Embiid is the closest thing to the Sixers' current-day Erving. He should be the foundation.
Yet how sure can the Sixers be? The 7-foot-2 dominating force has been mostly injured since he was selected third overall in the 2014 NBA draft out of Kansas.
The Sixers ended his season Wednesday after an MRI exam revealed that the meniscus tear in the left knee had worsened. As a result, Embiid played in only 31 games of his rookie campaign. And when he did play, it was for restricted minutes and not on back-to-back nights.
All this came after he was sidelined for two seasons following surgeries to the navicular bone in his right foot.
And that's just his professional career.
A stress fracture in Embiid's lower back kept him out of the Big 12 and NCAA tournaments in his lone season at Kansas. Embiid initially hurt his back Feb. 8, 2014, in a game against West Virginia. Then after returning to action, he aggravated the injury March 1, 2014, at Oklahoma State.
Even with the injuries, the Sixers have no choice but to be fully invested in their franchise player. Despite the uncertainty, Embiid is due to get a maximum salary extension as early as this summer.
Of all the players on their roster, the 22-year-old has the best chance to become a mega star.
"Tough, tough decisions," Cunningham said. "The poor young man has just come from college with his back, now his feet, now his knee."
In addition to playing in only 31 games, Embiid has yet to be on the floor in a game longer than 29 minutes, 49 seconds because of his restricted playing time.
But his passion for the game doesn't go unnoticed.
"Watching him on TV, he appeared to even be more athletic and have more confidence in his own abilities," Cunningham said. "Another quality I loved about him, he wanted to be a leader.
"And he wants to make a difference in the last two minutes, which many players are good for 46. I think he wants that last two minutes more than he wants the first 46."
The Sixers say that Embiid will be available at the start of next season. They are saying the same about Simmons, who was sidelined for the entire season with a broken right foot.
If Embiid is Erving, the hope is that Simmons could be the sidekick equivalent to Malone.
But can Embiid remain healthy?
And if he can remain healthy, who will become the team's Iavaroni, Mo Cheeks, Andrew Toney, and Bobby Jones?
There are a lot of questions to be answered.