The Great Tanking Debate of 2026

In what has become a yearly tradition, it's time to talk about whether the Sixers' epically bad injury luck should force them to change course and embrace tanking for the rest of the season.

I cannot believe that we're here again.

If you recall, I wrote a similar newsletter last year, very (very) early on when the Sixers began the season with a disastrous 4-14 start. At the time, I thought it was too early to tank and that they should make every effort to get their team back, healthy, and see whether the season could be saved.

Editor's note: that season could not be saved.

Eventually, when the injuries continued to mount and Joel Embiid looked like a shell of himself in January, I relented, and we fully embraced the tank down the stretch by wearing tank helmets nightly on our PHLY postgame shows.

By finishing last year with a 4-27 stretch run, the Sixers finished with the fifth worst record in the league at 24-58. They came into the lottery with a 63.9% chance of keeping their pick, which they would have owed to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it fell outside of the top-6. Those were odds that I could live with. Those were odds that I was comfortable embracing the tank for.

And the Sixers were rewarded for their tanking efforts with VJ Edgecombe.

But this year? Despite their wretched injury luck, it's still a very different scenario.

Note: Kyle, Devon and I debated this on a recent PHLY Sixers show. I'll embed that below. Be sure to subscribe to the channel.

At 36-31, the Sixers are tied for the 8th best record in the Eastern Conference. They're 1.5 games (and 1 loss) behind the 6th seeded Miami Heat (38-30), the team they would have to catch to avoid the play-in entirely.

Perhaps more relevant given how many injuries they currently have, they're 8.5 games up on the 11th-seeded Milwaukee Bucks with 16 games left to play, meaning it would be almost impossible to fall out of the play-in tournament completely. If the Bucks went 12-4 down the stretch, all the Sixers would need to do is go 4-11 to finish ahead of them and qualify for the play-in tournament.

Milwaukee, even with Giannis on the court, has done absolutely nothing to convince you that they have the capability of going 12-4 down the stretch. A more realistic best case scenario for the Bucks is to finish 10-6, meaning the Sixers would need just two wins the rest of the way to lock in a spot in the play-in tournament.

Two.

Given how many easy games against tanking teams (Kings, Jazz, Wizards, Pacers, Bulls), along with just garden variety mediocre teams (Blazers, Bucks) the Sixers still have left on the schedule, it would be tough to pick up fewer than two wins the rest of the way, even if the Sixers tried their hardest.

In all likelihood, the Sixers will finish in the play-in, which would mean they would need to lose in the play-in tournament to even have a small percentage chance of keeping their pick.

And if Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey and Kelly Oubre Jr do come back, I'm just not ready to punt on a playoff run (or even a playoff series) for a small percentage chance at keeping the pick, nor do I think it is in their best interest to do so.

A quick reminder on the odds that the Sixers would keep their pick, assuming that they don't make the playoffs proper.

Again, if the pick doesn't land in the top-4 Oklahoma City gets it, so the Sixers would need to jump up in the lottery in order to keep it.

I'm going to assume that catching Milwaukee (27-39) is off the table. As I explained above, it would take a truly Herculean tanking effort from the Sixers to do so. Chicago (27-40) is only a half game behind Milwaukee with the 9th worst record, but they've gone just 3-14 since February 1st and don't have a superstar in Giannis that is driving them to at least try to win. So I'm crossing Chicago off the list.

Here are the odds that the Sixers will keep the pick, based on how far "up" in the tanking standings they can go.

The odds of the Sixers keeping their pick, no matter how hard they try to tank, will not be in their favor.

Some assumptions that I'm operating under.

• Even if the Sixers tank as hard as they possibly can, I don't think they fall out of the play-in.
• I don't think the Sixers will have enough healthy players to move up enough into the top-6 to avoid the play-in entirely.
• I think they're probably ending up 9th or 10th in the East no matter what.
• If they end up losing in the first round, the odds of keeping the pick will be between 2.4% (best record among play-in losing teams) or 9.4%.
• I'm not really going to touch on the job security of Daryl Morey or Nick Nurse, even if that would impact what I think the Sixers will do. I am just looking at it from the angle of what you, Sixers fans, should want them to pursue.

I suppose the argument might be to tank as much as you can, assuring that you have the worst record out of the eight combined East/West play-in teams, which right now is the Portland Trailblazers at 32-35. That would give the Sixers the 11th best lottery odds (9.4% chance of keeping the pick) if they then lose in the play-in tournament.

But Portland is still 4 games ahead of the Sixers in the tanking standings with 15 games left, so "catching" Portland would be exceptionally tough to do, and would probably require shutting down Joel Embiid, and possibly even VJ Edgecombe, to fully embrace the tank.

That's a bridge I'm not quite ready to cross.

Truthfully, I probably won't fully embrace tanking unless Tyrese Maxey is not able to (effectively) come back from his tendon injury, because most of the Sixers' other injury problems could very well be cleared up by the time mid-April rolls around.

(I initially wrote "should be cleared up by the time mid-April rolls around", as if I was talking about a normal team with predictable injuries, but changed it based on our own, shared, lived reality.)

There are two key differences between this current situation compared to when it became time to shut everyone down last year.

The first is just the odds of it working, which I mentioned above. At 20-31, with only a top-6 protection on the pick, there was a viable pathway towards giving yourself a very good chance at keeping the pick last year. This year, at 36-31 and with only top-4 protections on the pick, there isn't.

At best, even if you do everything "right" the rest of the way, you're hoping and praying for a miracle on lottery night. The difference between a 63.9% chance at keeping the pick and a 7.1% chance is just massive, and there's no getting around that.

The second factor is that at this point last year Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George had all proven themselves incapable of playing high-level basketball through the injuries that they were attempting to play through.

Maxey shot 27% from the field and 2-21 from 3-point range in the four games that he tried to play through the tendon injury before being shut down. Joel Embiid was a traffic cone on defense in a way that I had never seen before. Paul George was barely capable of maintaining his dribble in traffic while playing through his injured finger.

That is not case this year.

Embiid was playing great before this latest setback, and an oblique strain is not typically something that would still be slowing him down a month from now. Maxey's struggles last year notwithstanding, tendon injuries are not always debilitating, and he deserves the chance to see if he can be more effective at playing through the injury this time around. Paul George isn't even injured this time.

The Sixers with Embiid and Maxey on the court are still a very good (bordering on incredible) basketball team, outscoring teams by 7.6 points per 100 possessions (in 1,726 possessions) while on the court together. That ranks in the 94th percentile of all lineups leaguewide, per CleaningTheGlass.

Perhaps I am crazy, but I am still interested in watching those two try to gut out a playoff run, even if it's a short-lived one.

Sure, perhaps you don't have confidence that Embiid will stay on the floor for four consecutive playoff series. That's a totally rational bit of skepticism earned throughout a decade of following this team.

But they are capable of temporary moments of greatness.

I keep going back to when Joel Embiid returned to the lineup on April 2nd, 2024, with the Sixers clinging to the 8th spot in the Eastern Conference at 41-35. The Sixers ripped off six straight wins to finish off the regular season, then played a very competitive six game series against the 50-win (and one win away from making the Conference Finals) New York Knicks, in a series that had some the best moments between Embiid and Maxey that we had seen to date, and in one of the grittiest playoff performances of Embiid's career.

And Embiid could barely walk at that time, with a team around them that was less talented than the one that the Sixers have now.

I want to experience more of Maxey and Embiid perfecting their two-man game in high stakes postseason action. I want to see whether Maxey can silence the Madison Square Garden (or Little Caesars Arena) crowd, like he did back in 2024. I want to see Maxey grow as a playoff killer, like he looked like he was on his way to becoming just two years ago. I want to see whether Embiid can gut out another 50-point spot in a big playoff game, like he did while hobbling around on one leg back in 2024.

And it helps that there isn't a proven playoff juggernaut waiting for the Sixers if they do escape the play-in tournament. If Maxey comes back from this tendon injury, the Sixers' talent isn't one to be overlooked.

The best stories in professional sports are the ones that come out of nowhere. It's part of what made me a diehard fan of this great sport.

Again, I understand the skepticism. I'm not betting the mortgage on Embiid staying healthy enough to win 16 playoff games, nor am I encouraging you to do so.

But that Knicks series also showed me what these two are capable of as a tandem, and you will never have playoff magic happen if you just opt out of the experience altogether.

Joel Embiid should be the next star to return, with Nick Nurse saying that a return could be possible during this upcoming road trip.

Embiid's also the most important, both because he's (still) the one most capable of almost single-handedly elevating the Sixers into being a competent basketball team, but also because Embiid and Edgecombe getting reps together is one of the major (non-playoff focused) goals to pursue for the remainder of this season.

One of the primary causes of playoff skepticism (besides just the health) that I've seen expressed is that they just haven't played enough alongside of each other to have the kind of cohesion and chemistry that you need to win in the playoffs. And I don't really disagree with that, as Maxey, Embiid, George and Edgecombe have been available at the same time for just 16 games so far this season.

But Maxey and Embiid DO have that kind of playoff chemistry, having formed it over the last six years of basketball. We saw that proof of concept against the Knicks. The pairing that you really need to expedite is between Embiid and Edgecombe. And, should Embiid come back in the next week, the reps that those two will get over the final 3+ weeks of the regular season (plus playoffs) will be valuable, whether that's for a playoff run this year or for one in future seasons.

More broadly, I want VJ Edgecombe to be placed in a high-stakes playoff environment.

VJ just told us last night that "I've never been doubled in my life," after the absences of Embiid, Maxey and George thrust the Sixers' rookie into a featured role. Which is to say, he still has a lot to learn, and in order for the Sixers to reach their short, to medium, term ceiling Edgecombe is going to be a driving force in their ascent.

He needs reps. He needs reps as a lead ball handler. He needs reps playing next to Embiid. And he needs high-stakes playoff reps against a locked in opponent game-planning to stop him.

Those won't come while being a tank commander.

Longtime readers will know that I've been (pretty consistently) supportive of tanking efforts in the past.

I was pro-tanking long before Sam Hinkie joined the franchise, and I continued to support that course of action when they carried through with The Process. While I wasn't on the tanking bandwagon in December last year, by the time February rolled around I was fully on board.

I find a lot of the morality arguments against tanking silly. It is the GM's job to do everything he can to find and develop talent within the confines of the rules that the NBA has put in place. This is probably worthy of its own column, but if that incentive structure pushes GMs to pursue tanking so aggressively that it harms the league, it is then on the league to change the incentives. Until that happens, teams should pursue any path that's within their own best interest.

No, I'm not opposed to the morality of tanking. I'm just opposed to the opportunity cost of what we'd be losing if we pursued tanking this time around.

I'm opposed to opting out on getting VJ crucial reps, whether that's running the offense with Maxey out, building chemistry in the two-man game with Embiid or, if things go right, playoff reps in a high-leverage environment, to help expedite his pathway to stardom. I'm opposed to turning down the chance, however small it may be, to see if the Sixers' stars can return from their injuries and catch lightning in a bottle.

I'm concerned about the message it sends to Tyrese Maxey (and, to a lesser extent, VJ Edgecombe) if they tell healthy players that they don't think that they're good enough to even care about trying to make a playoff run.

Perhaps most of all, I'm opposed to the odds of it all. It's one thing to put VJ Edgecombe or Tyrese Maxey's belief in the organization in peril for a 64% chance at Darryn Peterson. It's another thing entirely to put all that at risk for a 7.1% chance.

Put another way, that 92.9% chance that you've embraced the tank, sent the message to Embiid and Maxey and Edgecombe that you don't believe in them enough to let them make a playoff run, AND you still end up without your own draft pick for your efforts is straight nightmare fuel for the future health of the franchise.

My stance is to mostly just play out the season and see where your chips fall.

If you lose in the play-in tournament, then you take your single digit chance at keeping the pick and hope for the best. If you win the play-in tournament, you take your (probably still single digit) chance at a first-round upset and see if you can manufacture a memorable playoff run.

If having not embraced the tank earlier means you end up with a 4.8% chance at keeping the pick rather than a 7.1% chance, I can live with that.