The calendar has turned to September. You know what that means, right?! Our offseason outlook series is back for the third-straight year!
Hot Hot Hoops senior writer Matt Hanifan will provide his take on the offseasons of all 30 teams for the next 30 days! We will be going in alphabetical order, beginning with the Eastern Conference. Today, we will look at the Philadelphia 76ers’ summer!
Previous offseason outlooks:
- Atlanta Hawks
- Boston Celtics
- Brooklyn Nets
- Charlotte Hornets
- Chicago Bulls
- Cleveland Cavaliers
- Detroit Pistons
- Indiana Pacers
- Milwaukee Bucks
- New York Knicks
- Orlando Magic
Evaluating the Philadelphia 76ers’ 2026 offseason:
Additions: Jaylen Brown, LeBron James, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Anfernee Simons
Subtractions: Paul George, Andre Drummond, Quentin Grimes, Kelly Oubre Jr., Kyle Lowry, Trendon Watford
Re-signed: ——-
Draft: Labaron Philon (No. 22 overall)
Hanifan’s outlook: You couldn’t have scripted a better offseason for the Philadelphia 76ers.
Coming off an encouraging 45-win season practically stole Jaylen Brown from the Boston Celtics like it was taking candy for a baby. All it took was Paul George, who is 36-years-old with one of the worst contracts in the NBA, plus a pair of measly first-round picks. Nearly two months removed, it’s still an indefensible move by the Celtics.
Brown is not only a quality shot creator, but he’s an extra ballhandler to take pressure off star guard Tyrese Maxey. The 76ers also drafted Labaron Philon, who should have been a lottery pick, at 22, and Anfernee Simons, a Heat target. I was a huge fan of Philon’s ability to process and keep defenders on his hip in the pick-and-roll. He’ll have to get much stronger and improve defensively, but I think he will be a good rotation guard alongside Maxey.
The cherry on top was adding LeBron James to a two-year minimum. A Maxey-Brown-James-Joel Embiid quartet will need to mesh defensively for them to be a legitimate contender. And Embiid will need to stay healthy, which is obvious.
Though I am very bullish on their dynamicism and versatility offensively. Head coach Nick Nurse will be able to stagger those lineups to keep them fresh, and I think they have just enough depth to provide enough punch offensively.
Grade: A+
***
To check out our other content, click here.
Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Twitter/X here!
Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Instagram here!
Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!
Looks like easily the best team in the league if Embiid stays healthy. Caldwell-Pope and Simons band-wagoned aboard like I wish a few players came to the Heat for Giannis. And you left out DWade, or did they send him to Delaware? These are the villains of the NBA, the bad guys, the ones who will beat you up while beating you on the scoreboard. I wish them nothing but the worst.
Brown won Finals MVP with a regular season on-off that year of -7.7 and playoff -7.5. The Celtics won by a huge margin in Brown’s minutes and by double that margin when he was off the court. This past year he was in MVP conversation with an on-off of -4.6. Celtics offense was slightly worse (-0.3) in his minutes and the defense was much worse (+4.3)
In the first round his on-off was -31.4 vs the Sixers, and after the series he said it was the favorite year of his career and he wished the team had trusted the way they played in the regular season more, a season where he led the NBA in FGA and was 2nd in turnovers per 100. For someone making 35% of the cap those are comments you don’t want to hear esp. after losing a series being up 3-1.
Boston has one of the best FO in the league and they don’t lose trades, they got the best return possible for Brown’s contract. For the 76ers the trade also made sense because it led to them getting LeBron and it sets up a great matchup this year.
All hat…no cattle. Defense sucks. Can’t be an elite team without it.
dodgers lose 2 of 3 to marlins thats embarassing
What’s embarassing is not making the playoffs
when u have the lowest payroll in baseball u expect that.when your best players are on other teams u expect that.when an old high payroll team comes to play your aaa team u expect to get swept.w/o ohtani i give the dodgers little chance to win ws.glasnow not same pitcher anymore.snell was very good always is in jimmys season,the 2 japanese pitchers are excellent.but ohtani currently out that lineup not scaring anybody especially w/o ohtani sm.go heat.
The last thing ohtani said before going out on injury list was “I’ll be bock.”
tell magic either pitcher or player cant do both
What do you want for $700M? Dodgers made that investment back first year.
he cant pitch and play every day he wont make it thru a season