Despite playing his best stretch of the season, Joel Embiid has given reason to believe that his elite play may not be that valuable after all.
The Philadelphia 76ers fell to 16-13 on the season after a tough loss to the Chicago Bulls, putting them right back into the position that they were hoping to crawl out of over this stretch of games. Thankfully, the rest of the Eastern Conference hasn't been great either, so they're still the fifth seed in the conference, but it's still unacceptable that they can't find consistency.
A hard truth is that they very well may have a Joel Embiid problem, but it's not in the way that most would think. The immediate thought is that he's not good enough to be a help anymore, but in reality, it's a dynamic issue that we've been seeing.
The Sixers are still yet to win a game this season when Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and Paul George all play, which is almost unbelievable. The entire season, it's been the goal to get all of them playing together, but they haven't found a winning formula just yet.
With Embiid injured for most of the season, Maxey took over as the team's MVP and was leading them for the majority of the season. Even when Embiid did play, Maxey could still dominate earlier in the season.
That said, as of late, Embiid has been getting better, but has been taking away from Maxey's opportunities, and it's made the Sixers struggle to find their flow as a unit. When Maxey is the leading guy, there is a lot more pace, and they make the opposing teams play to their tempo, but with Embiid now getting back to his old self, they've slowed down the half-court offense, and it looks completely different.
Over his last four games, Embiid has averaged 29.8 PPG, but the Sixers won just one game out of the four. It's unfortunate, but this does display that Philly might not be their best as a team when Embiid is playing well, and that's something that they're going to have to work on from a coaching perspective.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that the team is better without Embiid, but it's certainly fair to question whether or not they should be leaning on him as much, or if they should implement a game plan in which Maxey is the guy that they are trying to create shots for every possession.