There are days in the National Basketball Association (NBA) when the names on the marquee matter considerably less than the numbers on the scoreboard. The Sixers’ 119-95 defeat to the Cavaliers over the weekend came on one such day. LeBron James returned to the city where he became a basketball legend and managed eight points. Joel Embiid, the supposed franchise cornerstone, failed to find the bottom of the net in nine tries from the field. Tyrese Maxey could not find his rhythm. The hosts, meanwhile, played basketball without any particular interest in the occasion. Donovan Mitchell scored 23, Evan Mobley added 22, and they took care of business.
For James, the evening was particularly strange. After spending years being the central attraction wherever he went, he returned to Cleveland wearing Philadelphia colors and received boos from the crowd. He scored only eight points, making this just the tenth time in his 24-year career that he finished a regular-season game in single digits. Granted, nobody should mistake one bad night for the end of a remarkable career. He has earned enough goodwill to have an occasional miserable evening without being asked to surrender his basketball credentials. That said, the circumstances were difficult to ignore. The man who once carried the Cavaliers on his shoulders year after year after year was now struggling to make an impression in his former digs. Time, as always, was playing defense.
Embiid’s performance was arguably more troubling because the Sixers need him to be the fulcrum that makes everything else work. His six points all came by way of charities. And they were beaten on the boards despite the Cavaliers playing without Jarrett Allen. They shot just 36.5% from the field and made only 10 of 40 attempts from three-point range. There was nothing to suggest they were making a serious championship argument. Maxey scored 17, while Jaylen Brown and VJ Edgecombe provided some resistance with 20 and 19 points, respectively. But individual contributions are useful only when they add up to something. Theirs counted for squat in the final analysis.
This thus leads to the bigger concern: What is the Sixers’ collection of talent supposed to become? They have assembled a roster that looks impressive on paper, but basketball is not played on paper, where everybody is healthy, every shot goes in, and the salary cap is merely an inconvenience. True, James is still capable of organizing an offense and making teammates better. Embiid remains a formidable presence when his body cooperates. Maxey brings speed and energy, while Brown offers another scoring option. All the same, the Cavaliers exposed how quickly the whole arrangement can fall apart when its principal pieces are not functioning. A collection of celebrated players is not automatically a team. Sometimes it is simply a collection of celebrated players waiting for somebody, anybody, to get going.
The Sixers will have better days, but they cannot afford to treat every poor performance as an isolated incident. The NBA season is long, and the Cup standings will eventually matter less than the questions that follow them into the spring. James has spent two decades proving that he can overcome almost anything the sport throws at him. Embiid has been a dominant force when healthy. The challenge is getting both to matter at the same time. The red, white, and blue have the names, the expectations, and the attention. What they still need is to show up and prove that they have earned their reputation as contenders.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and human resources management, corporate communications, and business development.