Gauging the Sixers’ championship chances ahead of their playoff opener against the Nets

It’s that time of year again, right? Crush the Nets in five starting this weekend, then get a lethal dose of the Celtics. I mean, tell me why I should believe in this Sixers team.

Well, it’s Joel Embiid season. That’s really all there is to it. You can complicate the Sixers’ outlook on a number of different levels. But the bottom line is as simple as this: Throughout NBA history, the team with the best player in the league is more often than not one of the last teams standing.

Let’s set aside the question of whether Embiid is that player in a definitive sense. I personally think that Giannis Antetokounmpo would be the first overall selection if the league redrafted top to bottom ahead of this year’s playoffs. Steph Curry and LeBron James might get some consideration ahead of Embiid at No. 2. But he’s almost certainly one of a small handful of players who would be in the conversation for those first four or five picks.

He’s also almost certainly this year’s NBA MVP. You can disregard my proclamation a couple of weeks ago that he’d cost himself the award by (rightfully) sitting out a potential showdown with Nikola Jokic. Embiid’s 33.1 points per game are the eighth-highest single-season scoring average in the three-point era. The only other players to reach that mark: Michael Jordan, James Harden, Kobe Bryant, and George Gervin. Embiid did it on fewer shots than any of them.

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If Embiid does indeed win the award, he probably sealed it with his 52-point effort in a 103-101 win over the Celtics on April 4. That performance was a case study in why these Sixers have a chance. Embiid is one of those rare players who has the ability to win a playoff series on his own. He won’t need to do that against the Nets, but he might against the Celtics in Round 2. And it will almost certainly take a virtuoso performance to knock off the Bucks, who might put themselves in the conversation as one of the best NBA teams of all time when all is said and done.

But hey, if Embiid really is the MVP, then maybe we should expect that sort of performance.

Is that really fair?

Perhaps not. Or, perhaps, your standards aren’t high enough. Between 2007 and 2019, there were only two years in which that season’s MVP did not advance beyond the second round of the playoffs (LeBron James in 2009-10 and Russell Westbrook in 2016-17). Every former MVP winner in the last 40 years except Jokic has appeared in a conference finals at least once in his his career. Seven of the last 10 players to win the award have at least one NBA title on their resume.

Look, expectations are a necessary characteristic of greatness. Without them, you have not achieved it. Over the last couple of seasons, Embiid has made it clear that he is one of a small handful of players who deserve the burden. There is no longer any doubt about where he ranks within the league’s hierarchy. The only way for him to differentiate himself further is to do it the way virtually all of the all-time greats have done it — by being a singular difference-maker in the playoffs.

Is it fair to expect Embiid to carry the Sixers on his own? I don’t know. But it’s definitely unfair to expect that he won’t.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean it isn’t fair to expect that he won’t? He hasn’t!

That’s a valid point, but only to a certain extent. In each of the last two postseasons, he hurt himself at the end of the first round. Two years ago, he still managed to turn in one of the great two-game stretches in playoff history in Games 1 and 2 against the Hawks. If Embiid had his current supporting cast back then, the Sixers would almost certainly have won that series. Last year, he was a shell of himself. The year before that was the bubble. And the year before that, the Sixers went to final seconds of Game 7 against the eventual NBA champs.

Right, I get it. All of that and he’s still is two bucks shy of a cup of coffee at Wawa. But he’s also playing better basketball now than he ever has before. If he can manage to stay healthy, he can absolutely be the difference in a second-round series against the Celtics.

Keep in mind, LeBron James himself advanced beyond the second round of the playoffs only twice in his first seven seasons in the league. Steph Curry’s first trip to the conference finals did not come until he was 26 years old and in his sixth season. Embiid is 28 and in his seventh season.

Who cares about the Celtics? It’s NBA Finals or bust, right?

Well, yeah. Obviously. Kind of.

Actually, I guess it really depends on how you define the word “bust.” This could end up being the second time in the Embiid era where the Sixers are one of the top four teams in the NBA but not one of the top four teams left standing (the first: that 2018-19 team with Jimmy Butler that lost to the Raptors). It’s almost certainly the case that they will need to get past the best team in the league in order to make the NBA Finals. After the Bucks, there’s a strong argument that the Celtics and Sixers rank second and third.

Whatever the order, one thing is clear. The Sixers have a far more talented team than any they’ve fielded around Embiid since the Butler months. Harden is increasingly looking like the perfect point guard to play alongside of him. Since early December, he’s shooting .396 from three-point range while averaging 20.9 points and 11.0 assists. Along with Tyrese Maxey, De’Anthony Melton, and Tobias Harris, they have four players who are shooting 39% from three-point range on 4-plus attempts per game (five if you include Georges Niang). In Melton, P.J. Tucker, and newcomer Jalen McDaniels, they have a trio of scrappy, high-energy, hard-nosed wings that can play defense and create havoc on the court while also contributing value on the offensive end.

So yes, the NBA Finals should be the expectation. But beating Boston in the second round to get to the conference finals would be a significant accomplishment. Really, that Boston series will go a long way in telling us how to feel about this team.

So what you’re saying is. . .

Sixers breeze over the Nets, probably in five, possibly a sweep. Embiid enters the second round healthy for the first time since before the pandemic. Boston can’t find an answer for him. Sixers in six. Let’s revisit things then.

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