The Philadelphia 76ers are struggling mightily. On cue, Paul George is ready to make his regular-season debut.
To suggest that the Philadelphia 76ers are struggling to begin the regular season would be a massive understatement. The Sixers are 1-4 through the first five games of the season and their two best players have been sidelined due to injury since preseason. To punctuate their lackluster start to the year, Joel Embiid assaulted a reporter in the locker room after the team's most recent loss.
With the pre-season expectations that the Sixers built after their offseason moves, this is a team that has been one of the most disappointing in the Eastern Conference. However, as the bad news has snowballed for the Sixers to start the year, there may finally be light at the end of the tunnel for the team. It's being reported that Paul George, the team's big offseason acquisition, is prepared to make his regular-season debut Monday night against the Phoenix Suns.
PG, who looked good during the pre-season, suffered an injury a week before the start of the regular season. After bringing him along slowly, he's finally ready to help shake the team out of their early-season funk. The other encouraging news is that Embiid's regular-season debut doesn't seem far off either as he's been a full participant in practice recently.
Can the Philadelphia 76ers climb out of their early-season hole?
Even though the Sixers are ranked 14th in the Eastern Conference at the moment, it's still early on in the season and they could surely climb out of this early-season hole. If the Sixers can put together a five or six-game winning streak, this is a team that will be right back in the thick of the race out East. But with the starts to the season that the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers have had, there's no question the Sixers still have their fair share of ground to make up.
Without both PG and Embiid to begin the season, the Sixers have had one of the worst offenses and defenses in the league. While I'm not sure if the return of PG and then Embiid will automatically fix the team's early-season issues but it can't hurt. And while the returns of PG and Embiid will give this team a push that they need, it would also be foolish to expect everything to be fixed.
One thing that we also must remember is that this team was completely revamped during the offseason. And there may be a learning curve or some growing pains as this team figures out how they're going to play with each other this season. Adding PG and Embiid is going to help the team from a talent perspective but it's also naturally going to introduce an entirely different scheme and game plan on both ends of the floor.
Then again, I suppose that with how the Sixers have performed this season, that's also desperately needed. The Sixers may currently be a mess but that is unlikely to be the case when PG and Embiid make their returns to the lineup. Over the next few weeks, assuming this team can get and remain healthy, we're going to find out a lot about this team and their championship aspirations.