Man, 2016 was a trip. If you were a Sixers fan back then, you weren't just watching basketball. You were basically participating in a high-stakes social experiment run by a guy with a spreadsheet and a dream. That dream was "The Process," and by the time the 2016-17 season rolled around, the Philadelphia 76ers roster 2016 was the physical manifestation of that chaotic, brilliant, and painful strategy.
It wasn't just about losing. It was about how they lost.
The 2016-17 squad was a transitional bridge. Sam Hinkie was gone—ousted in April 2016—and Bryan Colangelo was the new sheriff in town, trying to make the roster look like a real NBA team while still dealing with the leftover assets of the previous regime. You had a roster packed with "wait, who?" guys, seasoned veterans who looked like they were on a different planet, and the long-awaited arrival of the savior.
Joel Embiid. Finally. After two years of foot surgeries and Shirley Temples, he was real.
The big man logjam that made no sense
Honestly, looking back at the Philadelphia 76ers roster 2016, the frontcourt situation was just funny. They had three lottery-pick centers who all needed minutes: Joel Embiid, Jahlil Okafor, and Nerlens Noel. It was a disaster. You had Okafor, a throwback post-up scorer who didn't really fit the modern pace, and Noel, a defensive pogo stick who was clearly frustrated with his role.
And then there was Embiid.
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The moment he stepped on the court, everyone knew the debate was over. He was the franchise. But because they didn't want to just bench the other two high-value assets, Brett Brown was forced to try these "Twin Towers" lineups that failed miserably. Seeing Jahlil Okafor try to guard power forwards on the perimeter was a special kind of basketball purgatory. Eventually, the pressure cooker blew. Noel was shipped off to Dallas for a fake first-round pick (that became two seconds) and Justin Anderson. It was the first sign that the asset-collection era was shifting into something else.
Joel Embiid's rookie year (sorta)
Embiid only played 31 games that season. Just 31. But those games changed the trajectory of the city. He averaged 20.2 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks in only 25 minutes per night. Those numbers are stupid. If he had played even 50 games, he would have cruised to Rookie of the Year, but the award ended up going to Malcolm Brogdon.
The fans didn't care about the award, though. They cared about the "Trust the Process" chants during free throws. They cared that for the first time in years, the Sixers had a guy who could drop 30 points and then troll the entire league on Twitter (back when it was still called Twitter).
The guards and the "Process" legends
Who else was on that Philadelphia 76ers roster 2016? It’s a graveyard of guys who became cult heroes in Philly.
T.J. McConnell is the standout. People thought he was just a training camp body, a scrappy kid from Arizona who couldn't shoot. Instead, he became the heartbeat of the team. He hit that legendary baseline turnaround buzzer-beater against the Knicks that season. That moment felt like winning a playoff game. It was pure joy in a sea of losses.
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Then you had Robert Covington. RoCo was the ultimate Hinkie find. A developmental wing from the G-League who turned into one of the best 3-and-D players in the league. Fans used to boo him when his shot wasn't falling, which was unfair because he was basically the only person on the team playing high-level perimeter defense.
The rest of the rotation
- Gerald Henderson: The veteran presence. He was there to basically show the kids how to be professionals and hit a mid-range jumper every now and then.
- Ersan Ilyasova: "The Professional." He brought spacing. He took charges. He was later traded to Atlanta because that's what the 2016 Sixers did—they cycled through players like a revolving door.
- Nik Stauskas: "Sauce Castillo." He never quite became the elite shooter everyone hoped for, but he was a staple of that era.
- Dario Saric: The man who was "never coming over." He finally came over from Turkey and played with a motor that won over the entire city. He was the runner-up for Rookie of the Year and honestly, he was the glue for that locker room.
The Ben Simmons factor
We can't talk about the Philadelphia 76ers roster 2016 without mentioning the guy who didn't even play. Ben Simmons was the number one overall pick in 2016. The hype was astronomical. People were calling him the next LeBron James because of his passing and size.
Then he broke his foot in training camp.
It was such a classic Sixers move. Another year, another redshirted rookie. This injury actually allowed the "Process" to continue for one more year of high lottery odds. It gave the team more time to see what they had in guys like Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot and Furkan Korkmaz (who was stashed in Europe). It felt like the team was perpetually stuck in "next year," but with Embiid showing flashes of superstardom, "next year" finally felt like a real destination rather than a marketing slogan.
Why this roster actually mattered
Most people look at the 28-54 record and see failure. They're wrong.
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That season was the birth of the modern Sixers. It was the year they stopped being a joke and started being a threat. When Embiid was on the floor, the Sixers played like a playoff team. Their defensive rating with him was elite. The Philadelphia 76ers roster 2016 proved that the strategy worked. You suffer through the 10-win seasons to get a guy who can change the geometry of the game.
It also highlighted the difficulty of team building. You can have all the assets in the world, but if the fit is clunky—like the Okafor/Embiid/Noel mess—it doesn't matter. You need specialists. You need guys like Sergio Rodriguez (the Spanish point guard who returned to the NBA that year) to just stabilize the offense for ten minutes a game.
Practical takeaway for basketball nerds
If you're looking back at this era to understand team construction, pay attention to the "value-over-replacement" of the fringe players. The 2016 Sixers were a masterclass in finding low-cost contributors.
- Look for high-motor guys who don't need the ball (McConnell/Saric).
- Prioritize defensive versatility over scoring (Covington).
- Accept that roster turnover is a tool, not a sign of instability.
The 2016-17 season wasn't about the wins. It was about the proof of concept. It gave the city a reason to believe that the dark days were finally ending, even if the roster was still a weird mix of future All-Stars and guys who would be out of the league in two years.
To really understand the current NBA landscape, you have to study the Philadelphia 76ers roster 2016. It was the peak of the most controversial rebuild in sports. It was messy, it was loud, and it gave us Joel Embiid. That’s more than enough.
For anyone trying to track the long-term impact of these players, your next step is to look at the 2017 trade deadline. That’s where the team finally started consolidating those overlapping frontcourt pieces, which paved the way for the "Federation" era and the eventual rise to perennial playoff contention. Keep an eye on how the "assets" from the Nerlens Noel and Ersan Ilyasova trades eventually turned into the veteran pieces that supported the Embiid-Simmons core in the years that followed.