After posting a 9-3 record in the month of December, the Sixers appeared on the verge of turning things around after a horrific 3-14 start to a season they entered with championship aspirations. Since the calendar turned to 2025, though, the team has taken a major step in the wrong direction.
Entering Sunday's game against the Orlando Magic -- with an immensely difficult slate of contests beginning -- the Sixers are 2-4 in the month of January, as another Joel Embiid injury has cost them a few wins in close games. The team's only two wins in 2025 have come against undermanned versions of the lowly Brooklyn Nets and Washington Wizards.
In this week's Sunday stats, let's take a look at some signals that brighter days could be ahead and some significant warning signs about what the future holds for these Sixers:
+9.3
The Sixers' Net Rating (point differential per 100 possessions) in 82 minutes with Embiid and Guerschon Yabusele on the floor since the start of December.
Sixers head coach Nick Nurse has strayed away from his initial plan to start Embiid and Yabusele together, opting to go with more defensive versatility in the form of Caleb Martin at the power forward position. The pairing of Embiid and Yabusele got off to a surprisingly subpar start, but over the last six weeks or so it has shown significant improvement:
Martin has been much better of late, but at the very beginning of the regular season, Nurse wanted to bring him off the bench in order to give it an infusion of energy and defensive intensity -- things the Sixers' bench clearly lacks in a major way right now. Perhaps Martin's tenacity can give the Sixers the sort of extra jolt midway through opening frames that Nurse was seeking prior to the start of the season.
Meanwhile, it is abundantly clear that on a nightly basis, it is a fairly safe bet that Yabusele will be one of the Sixers' five most important players -- that ranking skyrockets whenever Embiid is sidelined, of course -- and especially once Andre Drummond returns from his left toe sprains, giving the Sixers another backup center option, it will not be too difficult to stagger the minutes of Embiid and Yabusele.
Far too often this season, the Sixers have been overwhelmed physically by a larger, stronger team. Nurse has been open about his desire to play lineups which can boast size advantages. One way to create such a situation would be starting Yabusele alongside Embiid.
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7
The number of consecutive games in which Caleb Martin has collected multiple assists.
To Martin's credit, though, he has been much, much better on both ends of the floor since returning from an extended absence caused by a series of nagging ailments. Of course, Martin's masterpiece in Boston on Christmas Day -- a career-high seven three-pointers made to power the Sixers to a win over the Celtics -- is what stands out. But the 29-year-old has continued to shoot the ball efficiently, even on slightly subpar volume, and Martin's season-long three-point percentage, which was at 29.4 percent before his time off, is now up to 37.9 percent.
On top of that, Martin is never going to be a reliable playmaker or shot creator for himself or others, but he has found a good niche of late as a player who, a few times each game, will put his foot on the gas, push the pace and generate a good shot for a teammate just by recognizing the right time to go. Again, Martin is not John Stockton, but on a team which asks for so much from Tyrese Maxey, someone else being able to make a play like this just a few times each night is meaningful:
Moving forward, though, Martin's three-point volume will need to go up quite a bit: during this seven-game span, he is shooting a terrific 41.2 percent from beyond the arc, but despite averaging 33.4 minutes during that period, he has only taken 2.4 long-range attempts per game. Still, the makings of a consistently very helpful role player remain there -- and Martin feels pretty close to finding the right overall mix of spot-up shooting, defensive playmaking and secondary creation.
9
The number of fouls committed by Adem Bona across three games (39 minutes) in the rotation last week.
Embiid and Drummond being out all week meant the Sixers had to roll with a center rotation made up of Yabusele and the rookie Bona for three games. Bona did some things well -- he blocked six shots during his 39 minutes of rotation cameos and was extremely active on the offensive glass -- but there were also some indicators that the No. 41 overall pick in last June's NBA Draft may not be quite ready for consistent NBA action.
Cutting down on obscene foul rates was always going to be one of the biggest priorities for Bona, whose issues with foul trouble date back to his time at UCLA and were noticeable during NBA Summer League. Bona has the best motor on the Sixers and outstanding tools from athletic and physical perspectives, but will need to continue to learn the most effective and efficient way to channel those characteristics.
Bona has the build of a long-time, valuable center in the pros, and the Sixers entered the season understanding he would need some time to adapt to the NBA setting. Bona has naturally embraced opportunities to go to Delaware and play for the Blue Coats in the G League, and just about every indicator about the 21-year-old UCLA product's mental makeup indicates he will take each step of his development in stride.
Otherwise, Bona's lack of scoring utility stands out as a concern. He is a non-shooter and also not someone who the Sixers will feed the ball to in post-up situations. When he scores, it will be finishing after grabbing an offensive rebound, receiving a drop-off pass from a driver or completing an alley-oop. In part because most of the Sixers' guards have not shared the court with Bona much at all, they simply did not look for him on his rolls to the rim following screens. Eventually, some familiarity with the ball-handlers he is sharing the floor with will do Bona some good.
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.601
The combined winning percentage of the Sixers' next 16 opponents.
This is where things look legitimately ominous. As the Sixers continue to sputter against mediocre (or worse) opponents, they are now looking at a month of almost exclusively playing good teams. 15 of their next 16 games come against teams who enter Sunday with winning percentages of .500 or better, and the first 13 opponents present a particularly brutal gauntlet run of games.
If challenging opponent after challenging opponent was not concerning enough, the Sixers have five pairs of games on back-to-back nights on the docket during this stretch. Unless the Sixers make a significant shift to their strategy about Embiid's usage and availability, that means Embiid could be in street clothes for at least five games.
Among the toughest periods during the next month: a back-to-back at home early this week against the Oklahoma City Thunder and New York Knicks, two games against the Denver Nuggets which will be the Sixers' third game in four nights and a home game against the NBA-best Cleveland Cavaliers.
If the Sixers want to turn their season around, they are going to have to step up against the absolute toughest competition. It will be an uphill battle.
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