A New Era of 76ers Basketball

76ers content is new territory for me. I’ve written almost exclusively about hockey as long as I’ve been on this site, so I wouldn’t expect it to be common knowledge that I’ve been a hoops fan nearly as long as a hockey fan.

After a while, it became torturously difficult to follow the 76ers while they meandered their way through the career of one of the sport’s most remarkable talents in Joel Embiid with absolutely nothing to show for it.

That isn’t to say Embiid is blameless or always made it easy for the 76ers to build around him. After all, he has yet to have a healthy playoff run, and the litany of injuries he’s suffered before taking the court in the postseason has taken the team out of entire runs.

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Look no further than this most recent run, where Embiid summoned three games of his best self against the Boston Celtics. It was enough to slay the Boston demons in the most dramatic series of Joel’s career. A magnificent moment that had so much potential to rewrite the story of his career… and his body didn’t hold up long enough to get him to the following series against the now-NBA-champion Knicks.

I wasn’t surprised when the 76ers relieved Daryl Morey of his duties, but I certainly wasn’t expecting Mike Gansey to assume his position and immediately change the club for the better.

He didn’t just complete a blockbuster trade. He solidified the team’s identity. He managed to build around Joel Embiid while simultaneously insulating the 76ers in the event that he misses considerable lengths of time to injury again.

And because Brown’s contract length matches perfectly with Embiid’s? If this doesn’t work, we have a natural pivot point to a full rebuild, where a Maxey trade will accelerate the process tremendously.

So there’s a lot of protection if it all goes wrong. That path is still appealing on its own.

But the thing is?

This really could work.

Why the Celtics let the 76ers have Jaylen Brown

In order to describe how monumental this is for the 76ers? It might be best to explain why the Celtics made this move. I can understand it without defaulting to Stevens being an idiot.

The same reasons Stevens felt comfortable moving off Brown are the very reasons the 76ers should be ecstatic to get him. Was there some off-court drama that exacerbated things and allowed us to acquire Brown at a lower value than would otherwise be the case? Almost certainly.

Leaving that aside, the Celtics have an identity, and they’re going to stick to it. They are going to keep running five-out, drive-and-kick offense until the end of time. They have use for two things in this world on the offensive end: slashing and threes.

For the offense to work, you need an elite driver who can reliably put the defense in rotation on his own or with a simple ball screen. Jaylen Brown was that for the Celtics this past year, but Jayson Tatum is that for the Celtics every year.

When Brown isn’t the elite slasher driving the ball down the other team’s throat? He’s spotting up to be the guy receiving the kickout pass. That’s fine when it means he’s attacking a closeout with his lethal downhill scoring game, but it isn’t quite so fine when he’s expected to take a massive helping of catch-and-shoot threes.

Brown is a pretty weak catch-and-shoot player from three. He’s good enough that you can use him in that role at times, but with Tatum coming back? He was about to be taking entirely too many of those.

And I’m not sure Brown wanted to live in that world, where he would be relegated to the off-ball player again. The guy waiting for the kickout pass. He had just led the Celtics to being title favorites without Tatum, proving his viability as a number one option in this league.

Paul George, for all of his myriad faults in Philly, is still quite a good catch-and-shoot player from behind the arc. Well, most of the time. Some of the shooting slumps in Philly were atrocious, but I suspect a steadier diet of higher-quality looks will make George look significantly better on the offensive side of the court.

He’s a smart player with a high-end handle, so he can create in a pinch. The Celtics saw that firsthand. George was… somehow… the 76ers’ number one scorer for a stretch in that most recent playoff battle.

Between the threes and the second-side attacks, George is going to be an important cog in the machine. Brad Stevens isn’t being a total idiot here.

On the other side of the ball, it’s a similar story. Jaylen Brown is one of the sport’s premier two-way players. He’s an athletic marvel who can guard four positions competently. A brilliant man defender, and you can feel comfortable leaving him on an island against anyone… except maybe Embiid or Jokic, but who can guard those two anyway?

The Celtics lose one of the better man defenders in the sport, but Paul George still has plenty of juice defensively. For how long? Anyone’s guess. He is 36.

But for the moment, he has developed an incredible ability to read the play and time his decisions to help in coverage perfectly. Particularly from the nail, George has mastered the ability to leave his assignment and help at the rim or at the point of attack at the perfect moment to disrupt the offensive play and never get punished for it.

The Celtics have the guys to defend the other team’s primary scorer one-on-one, so they can enjoy George’s strengths without missing Brown’s value too much.

And yet, what Brad Stevens is seeing… the reasons he might trade Jaylen Brown… is precisely why it’s such a massive win for the 76ers to be the ones who acquired him.

The 76ers are about to play at a blur

Jaylen Brown is an athletic marvel, as I said. A freak of nature. He’s 6’6″ with a 7’0″ wingspan, and he’s one of the absolute strongest non-bigs in the Association. He’s as quick as he is strong, making him an all-around terror in transition.

On the fast break, Brown might be the third-deadliest scorer around behind Giannis and Tyrese Maxey. Oh, how convenient it is that the 76ers now employ two of the three. Pair that with an ascendant VJ Edgecombe, an athletic freak in his own right, and this 76ers team is going to run.

With Philon coming off the bench? He’s going to keep up the breakneck pace.

For the 76ers, the pace of play next year is going to be an absolute blur. It’ll start at the defensive end.

I expect Embiid’s relative defensive struggles from last year to stick around. He’ll still be a force protecting the rim, but he’ll lack the mobility to consistently plug holes as easily as he once did. He’s going to get beat more often, and his ability to defend on the perimeter is probably shot.

In big moments, he might be able to dial it up. He certainly did against Boston, and another year removed from the surgery that claimed two years of his career? He might have more bullets in the chamber now than he did then.

Regardless, Embiid is someone the 76ers will have to insulate in some ways defensively.

They’ve done that here.

In Edgecombe and Brown, the 76ers now employ two of the most athletic players in the sport. And depending on how fast VJ develops, they’ll likely have two of the best perimeter defenders in the game. Tyrese Maxey is still not what you’d call an All-NBA defender, but he is an excellent defensive playmaker. He’ll rack up steals and deflections, which will help create more and more opportunities in transition.

I expect the 76ers to push the pace even further than that, though. They’ll dominate in semi-transition just because they have so many players who can beat defenders down the court and create mismatches, if not outright blown coverages.

Jaylen Brown is a walking mismatch, and nobody can stay in front of Tyrese Maxey when he has room to run. Or sometimes, when he doesn’t.

The Heat’s offense during this past season… where every possession was seemingly operating from semi-transition and Miami used quick-hitting isolation attacks in place of more traditional pick and rolls… will almost surely inspire Nick Nurse as he’s devising how to best utilize his newest weapon.

Brown, much like both Edgecombe and Maxey, isn’t exactly the paragon of playmaking. None of them will need to be. They can all create their own shot, and two of the three can do it at an elite level. They can all make the simple reads after they draw extra defenders with their pressure.

The offense will run on four to five players who can all dribble, pass, and shoot at a high level. Which is exactly how most of the best offenses are run in the modern NBA. Rather than one genius playmaker orchestrating the entire dance for everyone.

It’s all over if they recruit LeBron, because of this. Suddenly, they’d have another transition force who is also a genius playmaker.

But let’s assume they don’t, just to depict the strength of this move on its own.

How Brown fits next to Embiid

When Embiid is out, Brown will be the on-ball weapon that allows Maxey to go back to what he does best in the half-court. Running around screens and creating advantages with his speed away from the ball, daring defenses to follow a human jitterbug around the court, a la Steph Curry. Those two will be able to coexist perfectly. Maxey has always thrived when he doesn’t need to have the ball and kickstart the offense too much.

With Embiid on the court? The fit is a bit more nuanced and interesting, but certainly one that can work.

There is one problem. Both Brown and Embiid thrive in the same spots on the floor. They both score from the midrange as well as anyone in the game. They create buckets from inside the arc at will.

In some ways, I think they can use that similarity to their advantage. Picture a pick-and-roll game where… at any point after the screen… the defense has two distinct shot threats to worry about.

At any point, Brown can pull up early and sink a mid-ranger.

Or, if you cover that option? Embiid can pull up early, and it’s an equally catastrophic failure.

That pick and roll will have teams so scared of either one stopping short that it’ll create free runs to the hoop for both. Or, in more cases than not, it’ll create wide-open threes. Ideally, Nurse will find a way to make Maxey the open man in those actions more often than not. But Edgecombe’s shot is quickly becoming a strength in his game.

The other part of this is that Embiid is a generational offensive talent who has never not fit with his teammates. He fit with Jimmy Butler seamlessly, and Butler’s game has a lot of rhymes with Brown’s.

Perhaps it’s time for Embiid to evolve yet again and stretch his range as a shooter out to the three-point arc consistently.

I’m more excited for the possibilities than concerned about any fit issue.

When you zoom all the way out, the 76ers just acquired a superstar who accelerates the growth of a team identity. They’re going to be one of the most athletic teams in the league, capable of running with anyone. If not running them off the court altogether.

Embiid’s basketball mastery, with a relative lack of athleticism at this point, will add nuance and color to the identity — give the team an outlet for free buckets when all else fails.

Today, the 76ers established a team identity and put themselves on the map as contenders in the East.

Today, Mike Gansey began a new era of Sixers basketball.