The Sixers will never win a title until they get an elite perimeter scorer and shot creator

 As the Sixers find themselves down 3 games to 2 and on the brink of elimination against an inferior Atlanta Hawks team, the question is obviously why do they find themselves in this position yet again? Since 'The Process' has taken off the training wheels and catapulted into playoff contention, the Sixers under the Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons core have yet to make it past the 2nd round of the playoffs. It yet remains to be seen whether the Sixers can rebound and win this series in 7 games, but regardless, it's evident that something with this roster construction isn't working when they reach the playoff stage.

Trends matter in life. Some more than others, but at the very least they should be acknowledged and analyzed, as you can always take something, even if that's something small, away from a trend. The trend in the NBA is that elite scoring guards and wing players who can create their own shot win championships. Go through the last 10 NBA seasons. Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Kawhi Leonard, Dwyane Wade. Those are the guys these teams were built around. That's what wins in the modern NBA, where the game is built around shooting, shot creation, and spacing.

That type of player has been ever-elusive from the Sixers. Other than a short stint with Jimmy Butler, you'd have to go back to Allen Iverson to find the last time the Sixers had a player like that. Joel Embiid is a great player. One of the 5 best in the NBA. But it's different asking a player who is 7'2 and who weighs 300+ pounds to carry a team in playoff games against better teams who play their starters more minutes... not to mention an injury prone 7'2 big man at that. When you spend your entire game banging down in the low post, fighting for post positioning, chasing down guys from behind to block shots, chasing guys out on the perimeter sometimes to defend smaller guards; you're going to tire out and in the 4th quarter, you often are not going to have enough left to carry your team offensively. This is what we've seen time and time again with Joel Embiid in the playoffs. They ask him to do everything, and at the ends of games, he has nothing. 

This is why ideally, you pair him with an elite perimeter player. Someone who can space the floor and give him more room to operate down low. Someone who you also have to worry about not just shooting, but putting the ball on the floor and getting to the basket drawing double teams, or hitting pull up jumpers. Defending that type of player in addition to Embiid would be a nightmare for any defense. It certainly doesn't help that Ben Simmons' defender backs off of him so far that he's essentially already in position to give Embiid a quick double team. The Sixers need a guy who can take over offensively when Embiid can't. They need someone they can effectively run pick and rolls with. All NBA champions these days typically have two superstars at a minimum, both of whom are high level scorers. Ben Simmons is not that. He's a nice player, who can contribute to a championship team in a lot of ways, but you will never win a title with him as your second best player, and these Sixers playoff runs have proven that to this point. Without one, what happens is what you see over and over. At the ends of games, Embiid is tired, so they rely on role players to get buckets, and as one would expect, that ends in failure, because you're asking more of those guys than they're capable of. You aren't going to win championships with the likes of Tobias Harris and Seth Curry being your go-to scorers in the 4th quarter of playoff games.

The question is, how do you get one of those elite guys? They aren't easy to get and the Sixers don't have the cap room to sign one and picking at the end of the first round of the draft, likely don't have the draft picks to select one. That leaves one option left: via trade. And even though Ben Simmons' trade value might have fallen somewhat, there is always a general manager out there who believes he can acquire a player and find a way to get the most out of them. Ben Simmons, at least in the short-term future, is still going to have value. Will it be enough to acquire that elusive elite perimeter player? We'll see, but the Sixers will never win a title until Daryl Morey finds a way to get his hands on one.