Joel Embiid Is Playing More Consistently. It's Creating a Conundrum.

PHILADELPHIA — The Sixers have lost six of their last seven games played without Joel Embiid.

Make no mistake, that is not his fault. The franchise cannot and should not push him beyond the limitations that they've had in place for his season thus far. They need him to play to stay relevant.

The Sixers are outscoring the opposition by 4.97 points per 100 possessions in 972 minutes with Embiid on the court this season, per PBPStats. They are getting outscored by 2.51 points per 100 possessions in 1,660 minutes without him on the court.

Yet, it wasn't always this way.

To be clear, the Sixers have never been sustainably good without Embiid this season. But they haven't always fallen off a cliff amid uncertainty like they did last season.

They were 4-6 in the first 10 games they played without him this season. They were 5-5 in their next 10 games played without him.

That is, by definition, struggling to stay afloat.

But they've looked like last season's dreadful Sixers in blowout losses to the Portland Trail Blazers and New York Knicks leading up to the All-Star break.

"We got to do a better job. We seem like we had one really good game on the road trip, as well. There's been some probably not as good of nights," Nick Nurse told reporters after the team's humilitating loss to the Knicks.

"Most of it has been offensively, when I thought we were operating really well early in the year with some of the stuff we put in in training camp. Just got to maybe get back and go over it a little bit. Look at some of that stuff because we're obviously capable of playing pretty decently offensively, as well."

There is a fascinaing dynamic at play here.

"You got to play multiple different ways."

The Sixers were mentally prepared for the uncertainty around Embiid's status early in the season. Then he started to play much more frequently and increasingly like his old self.

They got used to having him around, naturally leaving themselves less prepared for the nights in which he was unavailable.

"It's weird, man. It's weird. You got to play multiple different ways. Lot of times, he sits out on back-to-backs. So it's hard. You go from playing one way with him or without him early in the season. He comes back, you got to play that way and then play a different way when he's there. Which is OK, it's fine. It's the reality of it," Tyrese Maxey said after the Knicks game.

Fortunately for the Sixers, Maxey — who knows Embiid as intimately as anyone on the team — is optimistic about his availability after the All-Star break.

"We'll be alright. I think he'll be here more than he isn't here when we get back and we just got to maintain. Those games when he's not there, and Paul probably won't be there until the end, so we got to just maintain," Maxey said.

While Nurse did not directly identify the one really good game the Sixers played on their long road trip out west, he and Maxey are aligned that there was a good game to serve as a blueprint.

That would be the win over the severely short-handed Golden State Warriors.

In that game, the Warriors trapped the ball out of Maxey's hands by halfcourt as often as possible, daring any other Sixer to beat them. It ended up being a bad bet, VJ Edgecombe carrying the weight in the four-on-three with the rest of the court to use.

Teams have been doing that a lot with Maxey, especially when Embiid is not on the court to punish the attention given to the ball-handler.

The Knicks and teams like them pose a different challenge. Their defense has the foot speed and length to stay in front of the ball. Trapping is not necessary. They apply their extra layer of pressure by helping off a teammate one pass away to pack Maxey's driving lanes.

"It's not frustrating. I look at it as a blessing, man. I feel like, in those moments, my job is to get off the ball and let my teammates make plays" said Maxey.

"I told VJ when we were in Golden State, I think they trapped me every play, just when I dribbled the ball past halfcourt. I told him, 'These games are where you got to be ultra aggressive. You get all this space out here. You go out there and you attack every single time. Make them pay for trapping and doing all those different things.'"

Maxey claims he can live with those restrictive defensive schemes as long as he maks the plays that enable his teammates to be aggressive.

But the Sixers can't live with it. Not a team that is deprived of consistent shooting and offensive juice beyond the starting five.

Perhaps it would be a little easier to strategize around if Paul George was not in the midst of a 25-game suspension.

But nevertheless, you have a conundrum.

You don't want to play without Embiid. You have Finals upside with him on the court Yet, the only way to condition yourselves for times without him is to play more without him.

At first, it seems like an Embiid problem. Music to the ears of the anti-Embiid crowd. All the more reason to try to trade him, right? Build with somebody who can play 70-plus games!

But then you actually think about it.

The Houston Rockets would be dead on arrival without Kevin Durant. The Milwaukee Bucks are functionally a top-of-lottery team without Giannis Antetokounmpo. Golden State is nothing without Stephen Curry.

The Cleveland Cavaliers would sink without Donovan Mitchell. The Los Angeles Clippers traded away James Harden and are still piling wins because they have Kawhi Leonard.

The truth is simply that the game is played at the mercy of the superstar.

As much as you might fantasize about life without having to rely upon Embiid, there is no substitute for force. For talent. For the respect of offensive gravity. And the only thing scarier than there being no substitution is that there's no guarantee you'll ever land on a player that valuable again.

So, how do you solve such a conundrum?

It's simple: You don't.