PHILADELPHIA — My wife’s a hoophead, so we watch a lot of basketball in my house: college men and women, WNBA, NBA. Caitlin Clark, Kim Mulkey, Charles Barkley, and Shaq spend more time in my living room than I do. I see a lot of Jalen Brunson and Tyrese Haliburton, too.

That included Thursday night, when Brunson dropped 32 in the Garden in an elimination contest and willed the Knicks to a Game 5 win over Haliburton and the Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals, forcing Game 6 on Saturday night in Indianapolis, which we also watched. The Pacers won Game 6, 125-108.

Earlier Thursday, on WHYY-FM, Mary Cummings-Jordan interviewed me regarding the state of the Sixers, and she used this delightful phrase — “noses pressed up against the glass” — to describe how the moribund Sixers and their fans were viewing these playoffs — and, unintentionally, how the Sixers and their fans had viewed every Eastern Conference final since Allen Iverson was the MVP of the 2000-01 season. It was the perfect description, on the outside looking in, breath fogging the windowpane that once again separated the Sixers from relevance.

For the last two years, that’s how it has felt watching Haliburton and Brunson, in particular, going head-to-head in the postseason.

I admit that, since The Process began its inevitable journey to failure in 2013, I‘ve fixated on how the Sixers have ignored the value of a true point guard. They never should have traded Jrue Holiday, whom they could have paired with Giannis Antetokounmpo, had they drafted Giannis instead of Michael Carter-Williams with the 11th pick of the 2013 draft, since Giannis went 15th.

Ben Simmons, James Harden and Tyrese Maxey never were pure point guards. Haliburton and Brunson are.

During both last year’s playoffs and this year’s, with my nose pressed against the glass, I’ve shaken my head when thinking about how Haliburton or Brunson could have been a Sixer.

Plausible deniability

In the 2021-22 season, Haliburton was part of trade talks between Sacramento and Philadelphia as the Sixers sought to shed malcontent Ben Simmons. The Philadelphia Inquirer, in January 2022, reported that the Kings offered Haliburton as part of a complex package:

One source said Sacramento has considered packaging Buddy Hield, Tyrese Haliburton, Harrison Barnes, and two first-round picks for Simmons, Harris, and Matisse Thybulle. The source said the Sixers aren’t interested in that package.

One of the sticking points, incredibly, was Thybulle (!), but that’s fodder for another conversation about the evaluation skills of Sixers president Daryl Morey, who spent more than a decade in Houston and Philly fixated on Harden.

Eventually, long after Haliburton was traded to the Pacers and Simmons was traded for Harden, the Sixers denied that Haliburton ever was on the table. These denials have grown louder lately. Why?

Because the Sixers endured the worst season and a half of Harden’s career from mid-2022 through 2023. Harden then forced a trade, and the undermanned Sixers got knocked out of the playoffs by Brunson & Co. in 2024. This season, after acquiring fading star Paul George, they didn’t even make the playoffs.

Meanwhile, Haliburton, who just turned 25, made two All-Star teams, led the league in assists last season, led his team to the Eastern Conference finals last year (after knocking Brunson out in the second round), and clinched a spot in NBA Finals after Saturday night.

It may be a point of fact that Haliburton never was officially offered in a deal for Simmons. However, had the Sixers offered Simmons for Haliburton heads-up, there’s no way the Kings would have said no.

Would that deal have been realistic? Probably not. Haliburton didn’t have that kind of value in the middle of his second season. However, if the Sixers had wanted to make it work, they could have. Somehow. They simply preferred Harden.

Considering the way things worked out, you can’t blame the Sixers for their continual denials.

As for Brunson, well, anybody could have had him.

From the fringes

Folks forget that after the 2021-22 season and the Sixers’ second-round collapse against the Heat, Harden declined a $47.4 million player option, became a free agent, and re-signed with the Sixers to a team-friendly, two-year, $68.6 million contract. That gave the Sixers salary-cap flexibility to sign complementary players, but it also gave them a 33-year-old, chubbier, slower, less-motivated Harden.

As it turned out, Harden never approached the form that had made him a 10-time All-Star. The Sixers had the Celtics on the ropes in the second round of the 2023 playoffs, but Harden disappeared in Games 6 and 7. When Morey refused to give him a max-salary extension in the offseason, Harden again forced a trade, this time to the Clippers.

In the meantime, on the margins of free agency, Brunson bet on himself and escaped Dallas.

The Mavericks had offered him a four-year, $55 million extension before the 2021-22 season, which, he said, he mulled over for the first 35 games of the season and was ready to accept after the new year dawned. However, he said, the Mavs rescinded that offer at that point.

By the trade deadline, after playing himself into the starting lineup, Brunson wanted more. Then, after a strong playoff run by Brunson, he expected the Mavs to come on strong. Instead, he felt they left him in the cold.

The Knicks stepped forward with four years and $104 million. Playing in New York also meant proximity to New Jersey, where he was born, and Villanova, where he won two national championships.

You know who didn’t step forward? Well, pretty much every team in the NBA, but especially the Philadelphia 76ers. They were all-in on Harden.

Brunson has since averaged 26.4 points and 6.7 assists on 48.5% field-goal shooting and 39.9% 3-point shooting, numbers that dwarf those of Harden and Maxey, a shooting guard forced to convert to point in the wake of Harden’s exodus.

Brunson also thrives in the playoffs, averaging almost 30 points and 6.8 assists per game as a Knick, slightly better than his regular-season marks. Maxey and Embiid have seen their production fall in their playoff runs since 2022.

Brunson had 24 playoff games with at least 30 points and nine — nine — with at least 40. Harden has scored at least 30 in just five playoff games and broke 40 twice. Embiid has scored at least 30 in 21 playoff games and has just two with at least 40. Maxey? Six 30-plus games, one 40-plus game.

As for crunch time …

Facing elimination five times with the Knicks, Brunson has averaged 29.2 points and 5.8 assists and shoots an astonishing 55.7% from the field. Embiid has averaged 23.3 points in four elimination games since 2022. To be fair, Embiid had 39 in his last elimination game (in which Brunson eliminated him) and had a triple-double in his elimination game before that.

Harden is averaging 14.2 points in his last five elimination games.

Left out again

One final thought:

Brunson led the NBA in clutch points this season. That’s a category in which Maxey and Embiid often do well. Imagine their doing it together.

Is it completely fair to criticize the Sixers for not prioritizing Haliburton as a trade piece in the winter of 2022? Probably not. At that point Haliburton was a good, young player, though now he’s the best pure point guard in the conference.

Is it completely fair to criticize the Sixers for not pursuing Brunson over Harden in the summer of 2022? Probably not. Brunson hadn’t proved himself to be this level of superstar.

But then, Sam Hinkie and Morey are supposed to be basketball geniuses. They’re supposed to be better than most of their peers — and certainly better than us.

Still, as all of us — the fans, the press, and the Sixers themselves — watch these playoffs, noses pressed against the glass, none of us wishes the Sixers didn’t have Haliburton or Brunson in their backcourt.

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