Despite falling out with Ben Simmons and relying on Embiid's single-core leadership, the 76ers have still played an excellent performance this season, ranking third in the East.
Embiid not only stays healthy for a long time, but also plays at the MVP level, and in terms of personal data and overall dominance alone, he is completely in the top five levels of active duty.
Meanwhile, the 76ers also made a 5-for-2 trade before the trade deadline, getting Harden from the Nets, and finally settled the farce with Simmons once and for all.
After Harden joined the 76ers, he once helped the team to play an impressive record of 5 wins and 0 losses, but with the loss of the old club Nets, Harden's status began to decline, and the problems after the 76ers trade were also exposed.
In response to this problem, the US media "thesixersense" also listed 3 major problems in Philadelphia, of which Harden became a double-edged sword, and the Lakers abandoned will be criticized.
Problem One: Depth
Without a doubt, this is the biggest problem since the 76ers completed the 5-for-2, and it is also the cumulative outbreak of Philadelphia's lineup adjustment problems over the past period.
In fact, before the trade to get Harden, the 76ers' second team configuration is a problem, after Harden's transaction, the 76ers second team depth was completely destroyed, coupled with the team busy with Harden's transaction, failed to strengthen the second team on the trade deadline, resulting in the 76ers connection section of the attack and defense ability is extremely poor.
In the starting lineup, the team has four big players Embiid, Harden, Maxi and Harris, in addition, the only people the team can trust are Niang and Sable, and the other players are very mediocre in talent and ability.
To make matters worse, the 76ers squandered previous opportunities to strengthen their teams through the free market, as most of the valuable players in the market were picked out after completing the Harden deal.
The 76ers only signed Lakers abandoner Jordan Jr., whose performance was terrible and completely incomparable to Drummond.
Even teams making the playoffs will shrink their rosters, but the 76ers' second-team depth is clearly a problem, likely to cause the main players to have to play more time, thus increasing the risk of injury.
Problem two: defensive ability
Usually, if a team wants to win the championship, then the offensive and defensive capabilities need to enter the top ten of the league, otherwise in the 7-game series, it is easy to be caught by the opponent.
The 76ers have two top defensive players, Embiid and Sable, but the super defensive ability of the two cannot change the 76ers' overall poor defense.
Especially after Harden joined, the 76ers' defensive problems became more and more obvious, he and Maxi are not good defenders, occasionally become a short board to be attacked, and the defensive ability of other players cannot be associated with the strong, especially in the inner line, the bench can only rely on Jordan Jr., if Bussi and Reed can not play the state, then the 76ers' inner defense will have a big problem.
Question Three: Continuity
Harden's continuity has always been a huge problem as a ball-handling core, and whether it's concentration or overall physical distribution, Harden will always have problems at key moments compared to other top players.
This also led to his inability to integrate into the 76ers' system and his inability to quickly form a good chemistry with Embiid, and the cooperation between the two was still very strange.
But the playoffs are coming, the 76ers don't have time to give the two to grind again, and the lack of continuity and chemistry between the two may eventually lead to the 76ers' playoff hatred again.