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The Philadelphia 76ers had a miserable 2024-25 season in which they fell way short of their championship expectations. The Sixers finished 24-58 as they were unable to capitalize on the talent they have on the roster due to injuries derailing everything.
The Sixers were leaning on Paul George, Joel Embiid, and Tyrese Maxey to lead the way, but those three played a grand total of 18 games together--finishing 15 of them and going 7-8 in those 15 games. Philadelphia could not nail down the chemistry and had issues just getting on the floor as a whole.
George, who put his podcast "Podcast P with Paul George" on hold during the season, announced that he is back podcasting on Tuesday. The first episode back was a crossover episode with the crew from "The Pivot" and he discussed the frustration with the Sixers on the 2024-25 season. He went into the losing, watching Embiid give the team all he had, and the leadership in the locker room:
"It was super frustrating because—like, not only playing with Tyrese, playing with Joel, like we had Caleb Martin. We had Kelly Oubre (Jr.). Guerschon Yabusele who just came off an amazing Olympic run. The roster top to bottom, I felt, was stacked with talent aside from the two megastars in Tyrese and Joel. The frustrating part is what had all of this and we just couldn’t just get on the floor together. We just couldn’t stay healthy. We couldn’t get healthy. Credit the big fella for giving us everything he had, but it was days when he was hurt and he was like ‘You know what? I’m gonna try to push it. I’m gonna try and get on the floor with y’all’ and it was just very challenging. We’ll practice and it’s hard to tow that line, be prepared, get ready, and then the following day have a game so sometimes it was big fella, he’ll try to push through the practice, that practice, he’s got a little sore. Then we go into the game and now he’s not available so it was a lot to kind of balance, but I credit the locker room, man. I think through all the tough times that we had, we just stuck together and was like ‘Let’s just try and make the most out of this.’"
"I can only put myself in his shoes and understand like how he felt on those days, but I came here to play with him. I came to Philly to play with him. ‘Damn, big fella out tonight. Like, alright, how are we gonna figure this one out?’ Now, I’m going into the game, big fella’s unavailable right now. So now we gotta kinda pivot from how we gonna play tonight now. We were always kinda scrambling, I think. Trying to figure out ‘Alright, this is how we gotta play tonight. This is how--we’re gonna run through this. We’re gonna run through that now. We’re gonna change the plays. Alright, Tyrese, we need more from you tonight. P, we need more from you tonight.’ It kinda just turned into that throughout the season of how can we make up for the big fella not being out there tonight."
"In our locker room, Kyle Lowry was the voice that stepped up every single day. ‘Listen, this is what it is today. This is who we are right here, right now. We gotta go out there and we gotta control what we can control.’ I thought he did a great job of that. I thought Caleb Martin—Caleb Martin came from a program in Miami that’s hard nosed. You know what I mean? So he brought a culture that he was built on into our locker room when we had him. Myself, I would chime in. Kelly Oubre would chime in. Tyrese Maxey would chime in being there the longest that was playing and then big fella, when he was available, would chime in so it was kinda a collective group. I just think we didn’t have enough time together because I’m new here. I don’t know the land of what’s going on here. Joel—he wants to say stuff, and he wants to, but I think he was thinking from a point of view of like ‘I’m not playing so I don’t know how these new guys is gonna take all of this in’.
Kyle coming in, he’s won a championship so he knows what a locker room culture looks like. It was just so many voices wanting to say the same thing and get the same thing out of it, but mind you, we outside of Joel, Tyrese, and Kyle, everybody else was fairly new. And Kelly Oubre, he was with them as well, but everybody else in that locker room was new so we knew it was going to take some time for this to get figured out. So I think we were optimistic. We want to be a championship contending team, but at the same time, it was like ‘We ain’t ready. You gotta go through some (expletive) to kinda really—that cohesion. To be cohesive with one another.’ You gotta go through some (expletive) to kinda mend together and I just think it was a bit rushed for us to say that we want to be championship contenders here."
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: Paul George opens up on many frustrations of 1st season with Sixers
Continue reading...
The Sixers were leaning on Paul George, Joel Embiid, and Tyrese Maxey to lead the way, but those three played a grand total of 18 games together--finishing 15 of them and going 7-8 in those 15 games. Philadelphia could not nail down the chemistry and had issues just getting on the floor as a whole.
George, who put his podcast "Podcast P with Paul George" on hold during the season, announced that he is back podcasting on Tuesday. The first episode back was a crossover episode with the crew from "The Pivot" and he discussed the frustration with the Sixers on the 2024-25 season. He went into the losing, watching Embiid give the team all he had, and the leadership in the locker room:
George on his frustrations of the failed season
"It was super frustrating because—like, not only playing with Tyrese, playing with Joel, like we had Caleb Martin. We had Kelly Oubre (Jr.). Guerschon Yabusele who just came off an amazing Olympic run. The roster top to bottom, I felt, was stacked with talent aside from the two megastars in Tyrese and Joel. The frustrating part is what had all of this and we just couldn’t just get on the floor together. We just couldn’t stay healthy. We couldn’t get healthy. Credit the big fella for giving us everything he had, but it was days when he was hurt and he was like ‘You know what? I’m gonna try to push it. I’m gonna try and get on the floor with y’all’ and it was just very challenging. We’ll practice and it’s hard to tow that line, be prepared, get ready, and then the following day have a game so sometimes it was big fella, he’ll try to push through the practice, that practice, he’s got a little sore. Then we go into the game and now he’s not available so it was a lot to kind of balance, but I credit the locker room, man. I think through all the tough times that we had, we just stuck together and was like ‘Let’s just try and make the most out of this.’"
On Embiid having to battle through injury to be on the floor
"I can only put myself in his shoes and understand like how he felt on those days, but I came here to play with him. I came to Philly to play with him. ‘Damn, big fella out tonight. Like, alright, how are we gonna figure this one out?’ Now, I’m going into the game, big fella’s unavailable right now. So now we gotta kinda pivot from how we gonna play tonight now. We were always kinda scrambling, I think. Trying to figure out ‘Alright, this is how we gotta play tonight. This is how--we’re gonna run through this. We’re gonna run through that now. We’re gonna change the plays. Alright, Tyrese, we need more from you tonight. P, we need more from you tonight.’ It kinda just turned into that throughout the season of how can we make up for the big fella not being out there tonight."
On leadership in the locker room
"In our locker room, Kyle Lowry was the voice that stepped up every single day. ‘Listen, this is what it is today. This is who we are right here, right now. We gotta go out there and we gotta control what we can control.’ I thought he did a great job of that. I thought Caleb Martin—Caleb Martin came from a program in Miami that’s hard nosed. You know what I mean? So he brought a culture that he was built on into our locker room when we had him. Myself, I would chime in. Kelly Oubre would chime in. Tyrese Maxey would chime in being there the longest that was playing and then big fella, when he was available, would chime in so it was kinda a collective group. I just think we didn’t have enough time together because I’m new here. I don’t know the land of what’s going on here. Joel—he wants to say stuff, and he wants to, but I think he was thinking from a point of view of like ‘I’m not playing so I don’t know how these new guys is gonna take all of this in’.
Kyle coming in, he’s won a championship so he knows what a locker room culture looks like. It was just so many voices wanting to say the same thing and get the same thing out of it, but mind you, we outside of Joel, Tyrese, and Kyle, everybody else was fairly new. And Kelly Oubre, he was with them as well, but everybody else in that locker room was new so we knew it was going to take some time for this to get figured out. So I think we were optimistic. We want to be a championship contending team, but at the same time, it was like ‘We ain’t ready. You gotta go through some (expletive) to kinda really—that cohesion. To be cohesive with one another.’ You gotta go through some (expletive) to kinda mend together and I just think it was a bit rushed for us to say that we want to be championship contenders here."
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: Paul George opens up on many frustrations of 1st season with Sixers
Continue reading...
