Sixers’ top priority is finding a new head coach (Nick Nurse) who can reinvent Joel Embiid’s role in the offense

Now that the Sixers have parted ways with Doc Rivers, they need to find a coach who sees Embiid as a part of a functional offense instead of the only thing that makes it go.

The Sixers have to find a coach who will get the best out of Joel Embiid while he's still in his prime.Read moreSTEVEN M. FALK / Staff Photographer

by David Murphy | Columnist

Published May 16, 2023, 11:20 a.m. ET

Joel Embiid and James Harden both need to change. They need a coach who can convince them of that. They need a coach who can build an offense around who they need to be. That’s where the Sixers’ latest and most urgent process begins.

Doc Rivers was a lot of things, but he wasn’t the coach his two stars needed. That’s why we’re here. It’s why the Sixers spent their Monday sifting through the wreckage of another second-round exit. It’s why the rest of us are wondering how the Embiid-Harden partnership can possibly work. It’s why Daryl Morey and Josh Harris decided what they decided when they fired Rivers on Tuesday. Rivers had two years and a lot of money left on his contract. But the Sixers did not have that kind of time.

The silver lining of the 2022-23 Sixers is that they met their fate in a way that was impossible to ignore. In Game 6, they had 14 minutes to hold a four-point lead at home. The Celtics outscored them by 12. In Game 7, they entered the second half trailing 55-52 and tied it on the first possession of the third quarter. Over the next 11 minutes, Boston outscored them 33-5.

Jayson Tatum was Jayson Tatum. Embiid and Harden weren’t. That was the difference in the final five quarters of the Eastern Conference semifinals. You can blame the superstars for not being super. Or you can blame the team for needing them to be.

A well-coached team is obvious when you see it. The players move the ball and then move without it. They know what they are going to do before they need to do it. They do not spend precious seconds of the shot clock figuring out their options. They make the extra pass, and they make it without hesitation. They play like the Celtics when the Celtics are playing their best. They play like the Heat around Jimmy Butler.

They play like the Raptors played under Nick Nurse.

The Sixers have seen it firsthand. This year against the Celtics. Last year against the Heat and the Raptors.

One of those three teams happened to part ways with its coach this offseason. The Sixers already have Nurse on the list, according to a report from ESPN. Really, he should be at the top, at least heading into the interview process.

That said, the Sixers need to cast a wide net. They can’t get hung up on names. Early reporting suggests that, in addition to Nurse, they are planning to talk to Mike D’Antoni, Harden’s longtime coach in Houston. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’d be silly not to. Nobody knows Harden better. Nobody knows that partnership better than Morey.

But let’s keep in mind the wise words of Willie Q. Shakespeare. What’s in a name? Look at three of the four coaches still alive in the playoffs: the Celtics’ Joe Mazzulla, the Heat’s Erik Spoelstra, the Lakers’ Darvin Ham. None was a head coach before getting the job. Add the Grizzlies’ Taylor Jenkins to that list.

Whoever the Sixers choose, it needs to be a coach who understands the real reason they are sitting at home right now. Embiid and Harden weren’t close to the players they needed to be. At the end of the day, it’s on them. But the Sixers need a coach who can help them fix that.

Look, Jayson Tatum was great in Game 7. There isn’t a coach in the world who can turn a player into someone who can do what he did. But Tatum wasn’t that player all series. Up until the fourth quarter of Game 6, he was shooting 41.1% from the field and 26% from three-point range. He averaged 17.7 points in the Celtics’ first three wins. Jaylen Brown averaged 21.7. The key for the Celtics is that they were able to survive until Tatum could give them what he did.

When is the last time the Sixers won even one big game when Harden and Embiid combined for less than 40? It certainly wasn’t this series. They did it three times against the Nets, but therein lies the point. They didn’t win that series because of Harden and Embiid. They won because they were the better team.

A big thing that Morey and his bosses need to consider is that the NBA has changed. Gone are the days when you could throw a couple of superstars together and watch them win games on the sheer force of their individual talent. It didn’t work in Brooklyn with Harden, Kevin Durant, and Kyrie Irving. It hasn’t worked out for the Clippers with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. It didn’t work this year in Phoenix with Devin Booker, Chris Paul, and Durant.

Look at the Celtics. Look at the Nuggets, who are favored to face Boston in the NBA Finals. Both teams are built around a trio of homegrown starters who have spent at least the last four seasons together. The acquisitions they’ve made have all fit within that framework. Aaron Gordon, Bruce Brown, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in Denver, Malcolm Brogdon and Derrick White in Boston.

True, that’s more an issue of roster construction than it is of coaching. The Sixers have squandered a stomach-turning number of opportunities to build that sort of team. Instead of Year 2 of Harden, Embiid and Tyrese Maxey, this could have been Year 5 of Embiid, Jimmy Butler, and Mikal Bridges. That group probably wouldn’t have been in position to draft Maxey. If they had, it would be Year 3 with him.

But bygones are bygones. Morey doesn’t have the luxury of doing the things he would have done back then. All he can do is try to make the right ones for the future. That’s the argument for running it back. At some point, you need to step back and allow a team to grow.

That formula requires two other things: 1) Superstars who understand who they are and who they need to be; 2) A coach who can help them make it happen.

There was one half this series when Rivers, Embiid and Harden looked like they’d found it. This was the first two quarters of Game 4. The ball was moving, and so was the defense, and Embiid and Harden were reaping the benefits. They got their buckets, plenty of them. But only after they got the ball in a favorable position.

This wasn’t Harden holding the ball for six seconds per touch. It wasn’t Embiid facing up and prodding with his dribble. That might work enough in the regular season to get a third or fourth seed. It might work in the first round. It may have worked against the Hawks a couple of years ago if you could transport this team back then. It might have worked against the Heat in the next round if the Sixers had made it that far. But it didn’t work against the Celtics, and they aren’t going anywhere.

The problem with Embiid is that it’s a lot easier to prevent a big man from getting to his spots than it is a guy who can get there off the dribble. It’s just physics. You can stack enough bodies in Embiid’s way that he has to settle for a jumper. In Game 7, there weren’t enough bodies on the court to keep Tatum from getting to where he wanted to go.

The problem with Harden is the opposite one. He can get to his spots, but he can’t do enough once he gets there.

Both are skilled enough to adapt. Harden is a maddening player, but he is also an incredibly bright one. His instincts, his vision, his feel for the court — those are custom built for a transition from engine to primary cog.

Embiid might be a little trickier, but who knows? He’s played far less basketball in his life than most players his age. The time that he has spent on the court, he’s mostly been asked to be who he is.

It will require some sacrifice. It may require him to give up some of the things that helped him win his long-sought MVP. On the flip side, it may allow him to play more within himself. It may keep him in a more consistent rhythm. It may even keep him healthier.

None of this is radical. It’s just basketball. The ball can’t spend this much time in the hands of a couple of players with their limitations. It leads to stagnant, dead-end possessions. You have three outs in basketball — dribble, pass, shoot. The longer the ball sticks in the hands of someone who can’t do all three, the further your options dwindle.

Ball movement, decisiveness, pace — those are the qualities that generate space and positive matchups. The Sixers need a coach who can generate those things so that his stars can exploit them. We’ve waited too long for them to do it on their own.