Can the Sixers officially stamp themselves as an upper-tier Eastern Conference team?<\/p>\n
A few weeks back, they appeared to be climbing in the hierarchy of not just their barren conference but the NBA as a whole. Then came a brief downturn before an enthralling three-game winning streak on the road. But the Sixers played arguably their worst game of the year considering the circumstances on Monday night. As always, nobody can be quite sure they know exactly what to do with this team.<\/p>\n
Let’s see how the national media feels in our weekly power ranking roundup:<\/p>\n
NBA.com<\/a>: 13 (+1 from last week)<\/p>\n Before the Sixers suffered their worst loss of the season in the form of an overtime defeat to the short-handed Denver Nuggets<\/a> on Monday,\u00a0John Schuhmann wrote about a team that was surging and its new most-used five-man unit:<\/p>\n “Kelly Oubre remains out and the Sixers remain one of four teams that don\u2019t have a lineup that\u2019s played at least 75 minutes. Their starting lineup with Dominick Barlow alongside Maxey, Edgecombe, George and Embiid is now their most-used lineup\u00a0and has outscored opponents by 8.4 points per 100 possessions in its 66 total minutes.”\u00a0[NBA.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n After Monday’s game, though, the Maxey-Edgecombe-George-Barlow-Embiid lineup crossed 75 minutes on the season, but its minutes were rough, so much that its season-long Net Rating dropped from +8.4 to +3.7. With Oubre set to return as soon as Wednesday night \u2013 and Trendon Watford firmly in play to come back as well \u2013 could Barlow be moved to the bench as his playing time as a starter wanes?<\/p>\n MORE:\u00a0Who will lose minutes when Oubre, Watford return?<\/a><\/p>\n ESPN<\/a>: 11 (+4 from last week)<\/p>\n ESPN’s voters gave the Sixers a massive bump from last week to this one, and Tim Bontemps wonders if their spirited push could alter the front office’s plans for the trade deadline.<\/p>\n “One question surrounding the 76ers earlier this season was whether they would shed the roughly $7 million in salary needed to duck under the luxury tax. But with Philadelphia now inside the top 6 in the conference, could the franchise instead look to bolster its roster for the stretch run?”\u00a0[ESPN<\/a>]<\/p>\n One potential option if the Sixers want to split the baby: scouring the trade market for rotation-caliber contributors on minimum or near-minimum deals so that coinciding trades can help the team duck the tax without experiencing a major drop-off. Those cost-effective contributors are out there, though they are not easy to find and acquire.<\/p>\n MORE: Cheap Sixers trade deadline targets<\/a><\/p>\n The Athletic<\/a>: 14 (+1 from last week)<\/p>\n Law Murray hands out New Year’s resolutions for each NBA team. For the Sixers, his 2026 resolution is to keep turnovers down:<\/p>\n “Philadelphia is 15-3 this season when it has fewer than 15 turnovers in a game. That\u2019s a high bar for a team that isn\u2019t even a high turnover team and has multiple ballhandlers in both the first and second units. The trio of Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid and Paul George is headed in the right direction.”\u00a0[The Athletic<\/a>]<\/p>\n You can now change that to 15-4 after the Sixers had 14 turnovers in their overtime loss to Denver. However, six of those turnovers belonged to Embiid, who made quite a few head-scratching plays down the stretch of a game in which he reached 40 minutes for the first time in a very long time.<\/p>\n MORE: Nuggets 125, Sixers 124 (OT)<\/a><\/p>\n Follow Adam on Twitter: @SixersAdam<\/a><\/p>\n Follow PhillyVoice on Twitter: @thephillyvoice<\/a>