76ers basketball is back. After a disappointing 2024-2025 season, going 24-58, missing the playoffs and achieving absolutely nothing, the 76ers look to have a strong comeback for the upcoming season.
The Sixers have a lot of new faces heading into the 2025 season. They drafted V.J. Edgecombe with the third overall pick in the 2025 NBA draft; they drafted Johni Broome with the 35th overall pick in the second round and signed Dominick Barlow to a two-way contract. With these additions, the Sixers look to play faster offensively with Edgecombe and get more rebounds and height into the lineup with Broome and Barlow.
The 76ers main goal this year to really live up to expectations is to stay healthy. This has been the Sixers main reason for failure for the past five years and it always is the kryptonite of this team. Joel Embiid has been injured almost every year before the playoffs, or he gets hurt in a playoff game. Embiid missed 39 games last season and was shut down officially last year in February to try and get his knee healthy and stronger before the start of this season, and it looks like it has worked out as Embiid was active for the Sixers last preseason game putting up a stat line of 14 points, seven rebounds and eight assists, in 18 minutes of action. Another Sixers star player who wasn’t healthy last season was Paul George. George missed 27 games and was also shut down in March. We can’t afford to be missing both Embiid or George, or this year will be another lost season and failure. George is already slated to miss the first game of the season against the Celtics, as he injured himself in the offseason working out.
Jared McCain started last season on fire; he averaged 15 points, two rebounds and two assists in only 25 minutes per game and was shooting lights out. Unfortunately, McCain went down with an injury in December and missed the rest of the 2024 season, adding on to the Sixers’ injury bug. McCain recently hurt his thumb and is projected to miss at least the first three weeks of the Sixers season, but hopefully he can bounce back and return to the team as quickly as possible.
If the Sixers can stay healthy, this may be their best chance to make the NBA finals or even the Eastern Conference Championship for the first time in what feels like forever. The East is wide open. Tyrese Haliburton tore his Achilles and is out for the year, as well as Jayson Tatum. Giannis Antetokounmpo is all alone in Milwaukee and doesn’t have the help he would need to make a run in the playoffs. All that really leaves is the Knicks and Cavaliers as the two main teams that can take the Sixers out in the playoffs, with the Magic and the Pistons most likely being positioned as underdogs against the Sixers. The Sixers need to make the most of the weak East and use it to their advantage to really show that they can be a competent team.
On Oct. 24, the 76ers played their first official regular season game, and they looked great. The Sixers beat their rival Celtics 117-116 in a thriller of a game. Rookie Edgecombe came out swinging in his debut scoring 34 points, the most by a rookie in his first game in over a century. Sixers superstar Tyrese Maxey also dropped an incredible 40 points, showing that the Sixers have a dangerous backcourt duo of Maxey and Edgecombe.
This season is make or break for the 76ers. After this season, the foreseeable future will either look very promising, or more heartbreak and frustration is on the horizon for all of the Sixers fan base, as it has for so long.
Jackson Evans is a fourth-year Communications major with a minor in Journalism. 1007049@wcupa.edu