The Philadelphia 76ers might be set on tanking this season no matter what. Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders speculated the team might be determined for another low-win season, even if rookie Joel Embiid is healthy later in the season.
Will the Sixers tank or not? It's a question that came up earlier in the summer and persisted when the team drafted Embiid, who had just undergone foot surgery, with the third overall pick. Kennedy believes it's a question of how soon the 7-footer can play.
"I think it depends how quickly he gets to 100 percent," Kennedy wrote Wednesday. "If it's early in the season, they may decide to play him. If it's not until later in the season, they may just decide to sit him like they did Nerlens Noel (who totally could've played last year).
"It wouldn't surprise me to see the Sixers take things extremely slow with Embiid and lose as many games as possible before putting him out there, if they do at all. Then, maybe a year or two from now, when the Sixers are finally ready to compete, we'll see them sign a few veterans for the bench and play all of these lottery picks together. It's an interesting way to build a team and I'm very curious to see how it works for Sam Hinkie."
Philadelphia seemingly confirmed everybody's suspicion that they planned to tank again when the team protested the league changing around the draft lottery rules to give more teams an even chance of getting the No. 1 pick.
