Just 33 days ago, the Sixers improved to 30-22 on the season with a road win over the surging Phoenix Suns. Joel Embiid casually scored 33 points in 33 minutes that night, continuing his run of renewed dominance and leading the Sixers to their sixth win in a seven-game stretch.

A lot has changed since then.

Embiid got hurt, and the impact of Paul George's 25-game suspension for violating the NBA's anti-drug policy became more pronounced. After the Sixers exiled Jared McCain at the trade deadline, the sophomore guard immediately became a rotation staple for the defending champions in Oklahoma City. Meanwhile, frustration mounted because, in addition to dealing McCain and making a controversial comment about having "sold high" on the fan favorite, Sixers President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey failed to acquire any players at the trade deadline for the first time in six years with the organization. 

The Sixers began to look incompetent without Embiid again. Embiid came back. Embiid got hurt again. VJ Edgecombe got hurt. Before he could return, Tyrese Maxey got hurt. The night Edgecombe came back, Maxey was ruled out for at least three weeks. That night, Kelly Oubre Jr. got hurt. He will miss at least two weeks.

The Sixers are 5-8 since that impressive win in Phoenix. They have gone from a playoff team in the Eastern Conference's No. 6 seed to the No. 8 seed with a real chance of sliding down a spot or two. Avoiding the NBA Play-In Tournament was once the Sixers' goal; now they will probably have to win back-to-back elimination games just to face the best team in the conference in a seven-game series.

All season, the Sixers have been imperfect. They have been frustrating. But for a long time, they were at least intriguing and occasionally captivating. Whether things were trending upward or not, the common refrain became: "at least it's better than last year."

By any measure, this season has been far better than the 2024-25 campaign for the Sixers. There have been flashes of old form from Embiid. Maxey has made another major leap, his largest yet. Edgecombe has obliterated expectations as a rookie. Each of those developments was far better than anything that happened during a nightmarish 24-58 season which began with the Sixers expecting to contend for a championship and ended with them aiming to do the exact opposite.

As the wheels fall off for the 2025-26 Sixers, what transpired at the end of last season has become center of mind. Because of Morey's very first trade in Philadelphia, a deal that shed Al Horford's contract and brought Danny Green to Philadelphia, the Sixers owed the Oklahoma City Thunder a top-six protected first-round pick.

Once it was clear their season was never going to get off the ground, the Sixers engaged in a multi-month tanking effort that netted them a 64.0 percent chance of keeping their first-round pick. They jumped up to No. 3 overall and selected Edgecombe, a significant boost to the long-term health of the organization.

It felt like small potatoes at the time that the first-round pick owed to Oklahoma City would roll over to 2026. And now, calls have started for the Sixers to pivot to a tank for the remainder of the season, giving themselves a chance to jump in the lottery for the second year in a row and will their pick into its protection range.

There would be far greater benefit to the Sixers holding onto their 2026 first-rounder than what meets the eye: in addition to suddenly having another chance to add a franchise-altering young player, the Sixers would also be safeguarding their 2028 first-round pick. The team is currently slated to send that pick to the Brooklyn Nets with a top-eight protection as part of the Ben Simmons-for-James Harden trade. But due to some tricky conditions on that deal, the Sixers would instead only send Brooklyn a second-round pick if they do not convey their 2026 first-rounder to Oklahoma City.

It does not sound like such a bad idea for the Sixers, does it? Unfortunately, it is not nearly as simple or easy as it sounds.

This time around, the Sixers have a lighter protection on the pick: if their first-rounder falls in the top four, they will keep it; otherwise it will belong to Oklahoma City. That means the Sixers' margin for error in the lottery would be slimmer than it was last season if they wanted to tank. More problematic for folks clamoring for another tank: the Sixers have already banked 35 wins in 65 games, and their floor appears to be the No. 10 seed.

In order for the Sixers to secure a spot in the lottery by the end of the regular season, they would need to blow a 7.5-game lead over the Milwaukee Bucks, which would knock them out of the play-in mix. Realistically, there is no scenario in which the Sixers are not a top-10 seed in the Eastern Conference, and the lottery standings do not include teams seeded No. 9 or No. 10 if they earn a spot in the playoffs.

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A shorter way of getting to the point: the Sixers will not have a chance to safeguard their first-round pick unless they lose a postseason game. The idea of tanking such a contest is just about unheard of in the modern era, and as the league office focuses on cracking down on tanking teams, it is difficult to fathom one with the Sixers' history of infractions going unscathed.

The only way for the Sixers to keep their pick would be to jump into the top four when the lottery is drawn. And even if they put together a brilliant tanking effort over the next five weeks – losing the vast majority of their 17 remaining games, then losing in their first postseason game to secure a lottery spot – their chances of actually making that jump would be remote.

The Sixers' absolute ceiling in the lottery standings would be the No. 11 slot – coincidentally where the Dallas Mavericks jumped to No. 1 overall from in 2025 to land Cooper Flagg after losing in the Play-In Tournament. If the Sixers want to reach that ceiling, in addition to losing their first Play-In Tournament game, they would have to finish the season with a worse record than the Los Angeles Clippers (currently two games worse than the Sixers), Atlanta Hawks (one game worse), Charlotte Hornets (two games worse), Golden State Warriors (three games worse) and Portland Trail Blazers (4.5 games worse). All of that would not even give them a 1-in-10 chance of making the necessary jump.

The 2026 NBA Draft class is believed to be one of the greatest in recent history, with multiple superstar-level prospects at the top and significant depth. Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, BYU wing AJ Dybansta and Duke big Cameron Boozer all would be clear No. 1 overall picks in an average year. North Carolina big Caleb Wilson, quite possibly locked into No. 4, would also have a case as the top guy in an average year. The Sixers securing their first-rounder would give them a chance to select a player widely believed to be a genuinely elite young talent. 

A rundown of the Sixers' odds of jumping into the top four and safeguarding their first-round pick from Oklahoma City yet again based on potential landing spots in the lottery standings:

And a more specific breakdown of their odds of landing in each spot in the top four depending on their lottery positioning.

Even for an organization that has never been afraid of flying in the face of conventional thinking and ruffling feathers as a result, the Sixers spending nearly five months trying to win games, only to use the last five weeks of the year to try to lose games, then blatantly tanking an actual postseason contest, all for a rather small chance at achieving any sort of benefit whatsoever is hard to fathom. That it has become such a common suggestion among fans in recent days is ominous, a testament to how little hope exists around the organization right now.

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