The Philadelphia 76ers have now dropped three straight games for the second time in a span of two weeks, going from third place in the East to sixth after falling right below the Indiana Pacers, who took the edge after an 18-point win over the Sixers on New Year's Eve.
Early in the 2019-20 campaign, the Sixers were the only undefeated team left in the league at 5-0 and while that came to a close swiftly after a loss to the Phoenix Suns, they soon lost to the Utah Jazz and the Denver Nuggets to drop to 5-3.
See a trend here? That's because it exists.
Fast forward a month and the Sixers were coming off another five-game win streak, buffed with quality wins against the Toronto Raptors, Boston Celtics, and the Denver Nuggets — only to drop the ball again and lose to the Kyrie Irving-less Brooklyn Nets, the Miami Heat and a Dallas Mavericks team without its star Luka Doncic.
Philly fans are not the only ones scratching their heads at these results, most of the NBA can't make up its collective mind: Are the Sixers a contender or merely a pretender?
Quality wins against the Heat, Raptors, Celtics (twice), and most recently against the Bucks suggest a Brett Brown-led team can make some waves in the postseason, but the deflating strong of losses that often follow these high-spirited results are often reason to doubt them.
The Sixers seemed to have shaken off that stench when they won 15 of 18 games within Nov. 17 and Dec. 13, piling up two four-win streaks and a string of five in a row before they dropped three, won three, and lost another three again — miring them in the hole they find themselves now — losers of six of their past nine games.
Philadelphia has struggled finding consistency within its roster. Joel Embiid wants to be a good teammate, the team's best player, the best defender, and an entertainer for the crowd, but he's realized he can't be all those things at the same time and win. In his effort to do all those things, he's doing none of them — pacing between dominant 30-and-10 performances back to less impactful ones.
Ben Simmons' reluctant shooting continues to be an issue, one that has been overshadowed by others like Tobias Harris, Josh Richardson, and Al Horford willing to take shots from deep.
Harris has been a stable presence, but has struggled to find his 3-point stroke after two straight years of knocking it down at a 40% clip.
Richardson and Horford find themselves swapping as fourth and fifth-best options, never really finding a groove and often disappointed in their contributions with this new team.
The Sixers are the victims of having too much talent and not a clear means to mesh it all. On paper they're a better team than the Raptors and the Pacers, and even the Heat. They've proven they can beat the Celtics and the Bucks, who should be their immediate obstacles on the way of an NBA Finals bid.
Unlike other teams, the Sixers aren't in need of adding, but rather figuring out a clear role distribution that will allow Embiid to establish himself and the team to know the hierarchy that follows in games when he's forced to sit.
The Sixers and their fans are sick of these mind-boggling string of losses after some feel-good wins, but this is a malady that can't be cured by trades or acquisitions, but rather by their own players and coaching staff figuring out how to best deploy their resources to make a steady run and peak at the right time.
