The 2025-26 NBA season is here! We’re rolling out our previews — examining the biggest questions, best- and worst-case scenarios, and win projections for all 30 franchises — from the still-rebuilding teams to the true title contenders.
2024-25 finish
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Record: 24-58 (13th in the East, missed playoffs)
Offseason moves
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Additions: Trendon Watford, VJ Edgecombe, Johni Broome, Dominick Barlow, Jabari Walker, Hunter Sallis
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Subtractions: Guerschon Yabusele, Ricky Council IV, Lonnie Walker IV, Jared Butler, Alex Reese, Marcus Bagley, Jalen Hood-Schifino, Isaiah Mobley, Jeff Dowtin Jr.
Joel Embiid played in only 19 games last season due to injuries. (Henry Russell/Yahoo Sports Illustration)
The Big Question: Can Philly’s past and future meet in the middle?
After a 2024 offseason that led to no shortage of excitement about the prospects of Philly finally breaking through for a deep playoff run, significant injuries to franchise cornerstone Joel Embiid, max-salaried missing piece Paul George and rising-star guard Tyrese Maxey effectively scuttled the season before it ever even got out of the starting blocks. As Tom Haberstroh and I covered on The Big Number this summer, the Sixers had Embiid, George and Maxey together for just 15 games last season; that trio and Rookie of the Year candidate Jared McCain suited up together only three times in the entire 82-game set.
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All told, no NBA team lost more games to injury last season than the Sixers, according to Spotrac — the primary reason why a Philadelphia squad that began last season with the third-best odds of winning the East wound up sputtering toward the bottom of the conference and picking third in the 2025 NBA Draft. The hope: After a long, restful, restorative, prosperous offseason, the Sixers’ main dudes would be ready to hit the ground running and resume their regularly scheduled pursuit of the Eastern Conference finals, already in progress.
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That, um, hasn’t happened quite yet! George underwent arthroscopic knee surgery in July and remains limited to individual workouts. McCain tore the ulnar collateral ligament in the thumb on his shooting hand in late September, putting him on the shelf through at least early November. And while recent videos of Embiid working out without a knee brace following his own arthroscopic surgery sent hearts soaring across the City of Brotherly Love, the big fella reportedly still has some “boxes that need to be checked” before we can start circling prospective return-to-play dates on the calendar. The team we’ve all been waiting to see … well, we might have to wait at least a while longer to see it.
The glass-half-full take: The Sixers have been busy during that downtime.
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Embiid returned from the offseason noticeably slimmer, and while nobody’s putting a timetable yet on when to expect him back on the floor, he continues to say he’s feeling good and making progress, all while actively returning to full-court 5-on-5 scrimmaging with the team. And VJ Edgecombe, June’s third overall pick and the fruit of the disastrous 2024-25 campaign, continues to elicit raised eyebrows and effusive praise with his nuclear athleticism and seemingly-ahead-of-schedule playmaking chops.
Sixers head coach Nick Nurse sure seems to like the look of the Edgecombe-Maxey backcourt — perhaps to the point of starting the two lightning-quick guards together. Perhaps, even, to the point of rolling out a three-guard alignment featuring the just-re-signed Quentin Grimes, who, upon arriving in a midseason trade from Dallas to find a hollowed-out crater where a basketball team was supposed to be, balled the hell out: 21.9 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.5 steals in 33.7 minutes per game, shooting 56% on 2-pointers and 37% on nearly eight triple tries a night.
(Here’s a fun bit of trivia. Only five players made 75 3-pointers, dished 100 assists, and snagged 35 steals after the trade deadline last season: James Harden, Stephen Curry, Luka Dončić, Tyrese Haliburton … and Quentin Grimes!)
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While all three have plus wingspans — the 6-foot-2 Maxey measured with a 6-7 wingspan, the 6-4 Edgecombe came in at 6-7.5, and the 6-4 Grimes lists at 6-8 — that’s an awfully small group across the perimeter. If Nurse rolls with either George or Kelly Oubre Jr. at the 4 — which would probably make sense, given the dicey set of prospective options at power forward on this roster (though we should keep an eye on Trendon Watford, who showed some intriguing flashes in limited minutes in Brooklyn) — Philly would boast one of the smaller starting fives in the league. That, in turn, would place an even heavier rim-protection and defensive-rebounding burden on the center spot — not exactly an ideal set of circumstances with Embiid coming off yet another injury-ravaged campaign and subsequent surgery, and with question marks young (second-year pro Adem Bona, second-round pick Johni Broome) and old (14th-year pro Andre Drummond) waiting behind him.
Smaller, more athletic lineups might be able to mitigate some of the size discrepancies by cranking up the ball pressure on the perimeter, dialing up more blitzes, traps and aggressive schemes — all trademarks of Nurse’s defenses dating back to his tenure in Toronto — in pursuit of more short-circuited possessions, more turnovers and more opportunities to get out in transition. Philly ranked in the top five in opponent turnover rate in each of the last two seasons, according to Cleaning the Glass; it’s a stylistic approach that seems like a hand-in-glove fit for all those fresh young legs.
Would it prove as clean a fit with Embiid and George, though? If not … well, at this point, how much can Nurse, Daryl Morey and Co. really prioritize what works best for the vets?
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That’s the conundrum in a nutshell. The Sixers have effectively built two rosters: one veteran-laden group tilted toward trying to immediately contend for a title (Embiid, George, Drummond, Oubre, Kyle Lowry, Eric Gordon) and one 25-and-under crew pointed toward several years down the line (Maxey, McCain, Edgecombe, Grimes). With nearly 70% of this season’s salary cap committed to Embiid and George, the Sixers are somewhat locked into the former construction — the sort of situation in which you’d burn the boats and go all-in on maximizing your chances of contending today, especially in an Eastern hierarchy dramatically overhauled by injuries elsewhere. With those three guards in the fold for years to come, though — and with Grimes evidently at least somewhat open to the idea of re-upping on a multi-year deal come season’s end — they also have to be more mindful of keeping what’s left of their powder dry building for the long haul than a team that has pledged itself to the Embiid-George pairing typically would be.
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(And if things once again go south, it’ll be trickier to just pull the plug and go into the tank this season. After retaining last season’s top-six-protected pick by landing third in the lottery, Philly’s 2026 first-rounder — owed to the Oklahoma City Thunder, in exchange for taking Al Horford off the Sixers’ hands all those years ago — is now just top-four-protected.)
It all leads to colliding senses of urgency and uncertainty — the feeling that nobody knows what the hell’s about to happen, and that it has to happen right freaking now, and that last year’s wasted, flailing season in the wilderness cannot happen again.
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“We need to set a standard,” Maxey said on media day. “This is who we are, no matter who plays, who doesn’t play.”
Establish that standard, and actually get everybody to play — particularly that big dude — and maybe this can finally be the year.
Best-case scenario
Embiid returns to (most of) his MVP form, George returns to (most of) his All-NBA self, and Maxey makes the next leap in line, giving the Sixers the kind of bona fide Big Three they’d been banking on. With Edgecombe and McCain providing thunder, lightning and impeccable vibes in the backcourt, and Grimes connecting the dots on the wing, Philly soars back into the top 10 in offensive efficiency, and Nurse schemes up enough advantages for the team to get back to league-average on the other end (and elite when Joel’s manning the middle). The Sixers make everyone who loved their 2024 offseason look like geniuses, rocketing to a top-four seed in the East and entering April mostly healthy, setting Embiid up to make the kind of run we’ve all been waiting for.
If everything falls apart
Embiid barely plays, and barely looks like himself in the process. George looks less like the fire of old and more like the fire’s gone out, that contract growing heavier and more burdensome by the minute. The young side dishes can’t add up to a main course. Nurse’s mad-scientist act fails to produce results, growing stale quickly. The Sixers suck again, but not enough, and hand something like the sixth pick in the draft to Oklahoma City. Night falls on an era in Philadelphia basketball; whatever and whoever is around to start the 2026-27 season will look very, very different.
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2025-26 schedule
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Season opener: Oct. 22 at Boston
I am nothing if not resolute in my desire to tilt at windmills. Give me 60 games of Embiid and George; give me the over. (Just not, like, as an actual bet with actual money.)
More season previews
East: Atlanta Hawks • Boston Celtics • Brooklyn Nets • Charlotte Hornets • Chicago Bulls • Cleveland Cavaliers • Detroit Pistons • Indiana Pacers • Miami Heat • Milwaukee Bucks • New York Knicks • Orlando Magic • Philadelphia 76ers • Toronto Raptors • Washington Wizards
West: Dallas Mavericks • Denver Nuggets • Golden State Warriors • Houston Rockets • Los Angeles Clippers • Los Angeles Lakers • Memphis Grizzlies • Minnesota Timberwolves • New Orleans Pelicans • Oklahoma City Thunder • Phoenix Suns • Portland Trail Blazers • Sacramento Kings • San Antonio Spurs • Utah Jazz
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