The Philadelphia 76ers are loading up to challenge the Celtics in the Eastern Conference. The Sixers are signing Paul George to a four-year, $212 million deal to form a big-3 of George, Joel Embiid, and Tyrese Maxey. Maxey has agreed to a five-year, $204 million extension.
Karalis’ Analysis
Think of everything the Sixers were hoping for when they gave Tobias Harris a five-year, $180 million deal as a 26-year-old. Now they're giving $212 million to 34-year-old Paul George to do those things.
We all know what George can be when he’s healthy. He’s been an All-Star the past two seasons (nine times overall) and he got 16 third-place votes for All-NBA this season, so he’s good enough to warrant consideration.
He’s coming off the best shooting season of his career. His overall field goal percentage was 3% shy of a 50/40/90 season, his 3-point shooting (41.3%) was a tick higher than his previous best season, and his 2-point percentage (52.3%) was only 1.4% shy of a career-best. He also shot 90.7% from the line, topping the 90% mark for the first time in his career. All that adds up to a true shooting percentage of .613, the best of his life.
He can still defend, though he’s lost a step there, but having Embiid behind him will add a step because teams don’t like what they see when they beat a defender and turn a corner against Philadelphia. Embiid is a deterrent, so his perimeter defenders will look better.
George will give Embiid a killer passing option out of double teams. The days of helping off Harris are over, which means Embiid gets cleaner looks and Maxey gets wider driving lanes. They're re-signing Kelly Oubre, they added Eric Gordon, and have a chance to bring back Buddy Hield, so there should be no issues with the Sixers' offense. They should be pretty good defensively as well, and they will easily be one of the biggest challenges to Boston in the East …
… IF they can stay healthy.
George played 74 games last season but 56, 31, and 54 before that. Embiid is coming off a torn meniscus that held him to 39 regular season games and despite a valiant effort in the playoffs, a clearly hobbled postseason run. He’s never played more than 68 games and now that he’s 30 it’s more likely that he has to be tightly managed over the regular season just to have a chance of staying healthy in the playoffs.
It puts pressure on Maxey to keep growing into a superstar role and handle the scoring load on nights they are without Embiid and/or George.
The clock is going to start ticking on the Sixers right away. Not only are their two best players now 30 and 34, they are going to be an expensive team with a short window. They might have time to make one or two more moves to support this core before moving on to a rebuild. They’ll be good, but will they stay healthy enough to truly challenge the Celtics in the East?