Harden was asked to describe why is this season looking better than the previous one where they had Paul George and Russell Westbrook in the roster too: “Personnel. You guys know, you know the players we had last year,” Harden said to Joey Linn of Sports Illustrated. “It’s just different, it’s a completely different team. We got guys that know what they are supposed to be doing consistently on a night-to-night basis. From the beginning of the season it’s just been a different team.” -via BasketNews / April 7, 2025

Jorge Sierra: Russell Westbrook passed Oscar Robertson in assists last night and is now No. 8 in NBA history. Also: Stephen Curry is No. 45 in steals after moving ahead of Paul George. -via Twitter @hoopshype / March 29, 2025

“… You tell my guy (James Harden) that you’re gonna do something for him, a guy that you brought from all these teams, and then you don’t. Like, did AI tell him not to pay James Harden this amount of money? Does the AI tell him to go get Paul George, hire Nick Nurse? “Does AI tell you to get the guy from Miami, Caleb Martin, because he played well in the Boston series? He can’t shoot the ball. You got three dominant guys that need the ball in their hands. Why is that the first guy that you go get? How did you come up with picking a team? Why do you want to start a brand-new team and try to win a championship? I haven’t seen any team that has 10 new guys be really good the following year. I don’t even know if any team has ever done that. “I’m just not a fan of how he goes about choosing players and flipping players in and out. It’s kind of like he’s trying to outsmart the game too much.” -via Hoops Rumors / March 19, 2025

In an appearance on ESPN’s “NBA Today,” Shams Charania reported that there has been “tension” between Embiid and the 76ers this season regarding the handling of his injury. According to Charania, Embiid has insisted that he needs surgery to correct his knee issue, while the Sixers pushed him to play through the injury. “There was some tension there between Joel Embiid and that front office, from my understanding,” Charania said. “The team believed he needed to play at some points of the season, that he needed to get his conditioning right through playing and getting better that way. He felt like he needed surgery. He ends up getting the surgery.” -via Larry Brown Sports / April 3, 2025

Adam Aaronson: Doc Rivers on the Joel Embiid news: “I feel bad for him. He told me when we played them earlier in the year… he grabbed me on the floor and said ‘I’m probably going to have surgery at the end.’” -via Twitter @SixersAdam / April 3, 2025

For the past several weeks, the 76ers and Embiid have been working toward a solution for the knee issues that have dogged him for more than a year, and caused him to be ruled out for the season in late February. Those consultations with doctors and specialists ultimately led to the decision for Embiid to have surgery, with the hope being that he can get back to the level he had played at in prior seasons. -via ESPN / April 2, 2025