David Murphy: Sixers will enter free agency having come full circle. Can they avoid going around again?

Before we take a dive into the things that the Sixers need to do in order to do what they have not done in the Joel Embiid Era, let’s establish a jumping-off point.

Winning in the playoffs is hard. Extraordinarily hard. When you look around the NBA, you’ll see that there are essentially three formulas, all heavily reliant on variables that are only slightly more predictable than chance.

Method 1: Buy a franchise in a destination city and recruit two or three superstars to come join you.

Method 2: Draft an MVP-caliber superstar and spend years grinding out the perfect supporting cast via forward-looking trades, bang-for-the-buck free-agent signings, and diamond-in-the-rough draft picks. In the process, perhaps add another superstar to the mix.

Method 3: Assemble a team that happens to hit its stride in a season when all the Method 1 and Method 2 teams are injured or underperforming or gearing up for the offseason.

Method 1 is dated to the point of being anachronistic. It didn’t work in Brooklyn. It hasn’t worked in Phoenix or Los Angeles, unless you count the Lakers’ fraudulent bubble title and every Clippers season over the last decade-and-a-half.

Method 3 can only take you so far. Besides, it is neither actionable nor desirable. Ten years from now, will we really look back and remember the Atlanta Hawks as everything the Sixers weren’t simply because they happened to make a conference finals in a season when the world was still trying to reestablish its circadian rhythms following a year of pandemic lockdown?

Method 2 is the only legitimate aspiration. It is the formula that carried the Spurs and Warriors to SuperTeam status. It is the formula that finally led to titles in Denver and Milwaukee. It is the formula that has made the Celtics this year’s team to beat in the East.

Joel Embiid gets it. He’s seen it firsthand. After the Sixers’ Game 6 loss to the Knicks on Thursday, the reigning MVP provided a tidy summary of the organization’s post-Process roster management.

“There’s never been any continuity,” Embiid said. “You look at Denver last year. They’ve been together for, what, five, six, seven years? Golden State, they’ve been together for a long time. So, at some point, if you really want to win, you’ve got to have some key guys. And then, here and there, you can add a bunch of guys and just learn how to play together with each other and grow together.”

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