The Sixers have everything except the ring — but pressure to deliver has never been higher

It’s hard to argue that the Sixers are missing any significant items on the checklist of championship attributes. In fact, from the front office to the sidelines and the court, they have all the appearances of an elite organization — a status further cemented by Joel Embiid’s recent three-year, $193 million contract extension. If the belief is that building a first-class operation will inevitably lead to first-class results, the team could be well on its way to that elusive first title since 1983.

But at the same time, the pressure to deliver on that vision has never been higher — something Embiid’s new deal only heightens.

As far as headline stars go, Embiid fits the championship mold: He is, when healthy, one of the league’s top handful of players — he ranks fifth in Wins Above Replacement (WAR) per game over the past four seasons —  and statistically, he might even be the greatest scorer in NBA history on a per-possession basis. His new deal ensures that he’ll be in red, white and blue through at least the 2027-28 season (if not longer), giving Philly no fewer than four more shots at a title with Embiid leading the way.

» READ MORE: Which Philly athlete has made the most money? Here’s the Top 10 career earners among current players.

That’s a pretty long window of time to know you’ll have your franchise anchor. Among the NBA’s 10 best players by WAR per game since 2020-21, only Jayson Tatum — who signed a 5-year, $314 million extension in July — is guaranteed to be with his current team longer than Embiid is set to stay in Philly:

Between Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and incoming All-Star Paul George, these Sixers also have a championship-caliber big three that can stand up against any leading combo in the league. While it may be getting more difficult for such star-powered teams to win NBA titles in recent seasons, the history of the league usually does revolve around precisely these types of big names working together in concert. So consider this another way in which Philly has the adornments of a champion already.

That extends to the coaching staff and the front office as well. Head coach Nick Nurse is one of just 10 active coaches who’ve won an NBA title in his career — and he has the eighth-highest career playoff winning percentage of any active coach. Team president Daryl Morey is the third-longest tenured active team decision-maker, and his career record as an executive (162 games over .500) is by far the best of anyone currently running an NBA franchise. Brad Stevens may have the higher winning percentage as GM, but Morey’s been at this for nearly six times as long.

At the ownership level, Josh Harris (who co-owns the team with David Blitzer) is one of the league’s richest governors. Chaos aside — and there has been plenty of that over the past decade — the Sixers have always been willing to pay for talent when they’re in win-now mode, as they currently are. Between salaries and the luxury tax, Philly will spend roughly $200 million on this star-laden team in 2024-25, eighth-most in the league.

All of this underscores just how close to best-in-class the Sixers can credibly call every facet of their operation. They’ve even won the league’s fourth-most regular season games over the past seven seasons, joining Milwaukee, Boston and Denver as the only other teams to record at least 340 victories over that span.

But therein lies the last incomplete part of the Sixers’ grand checklist: All of those other teams have won championships. Philly hasn’t.

This is made even more surprising by the fact that it’s been an unprecedented recent era for parity in the NBA. The past six seasons have yielded six different champions, joining 1975-80 as the only other such streak of six different winners in the history of the league. In the midst of that trend, it would seem highly improbable that a team with as much regular-season success as Philly couldn’t even make a single conference finals appearance — much less get to the NBA Finals or, heaven forbid, win a title.

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Many of the teams that emerged as top contenders around the same time as the Embiid Sixers — squads such as Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Bucks, Nikola Jokic’s Nuggets, Tatum’s Celtics, LeBron James in his Laker Era, and Pascal Siakam’s Raptors (with a big helping hand from Kawhi Leonard, of course) — have lifted the weight of championship expectations off of themselves. Most of the other exceptions, such as the Utah Jazz with Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, have since been broken up. The Sixers are just about the only team still hanging around at that same party years later, waiting for something good to happen long after everyone else left.

Now, the next wave of contenders is rolling up on Philly — teams like the Thunder, Timberwolves, Mavs, Pacers, Magic, Cavs and Grizzlies, just to name a few. If the Sixers don’t fulfill their championship destiny, all the things that project a winning aura won’t mean much without delivering the one thing that truly matters.