As the Philadelphia 76ers vie for the 2024-25 championship, their key players will hit individual career milestones along the way.
Achievements like the first NBA points from Jared McCain and All-Star nominations for any combination of Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George are easy to see — and will be worth celebrating. Some of them are oddly specific statistical feats. But in such a long season, where the determination of whether it was successful won’t come for over half a year, it’s worth setting some checkpoints along the way.
Here are a handful of milestones that the 76ers will likely reach in the 2024-25 NBA season.
Joel Embiid closing in on several feats
Fastest player to reach 13,000 points and 5,000 rebounds
Entering this season, 123 players have reached these benchmarks. Embiid is about to get there faster than anyone, though. He’s at 433 games and the record right now is Karl-Anthony Towns’ 573. Is this a super important milestone? No, but it’s something! At least the 5,000 boards make for a nice, round number.
Embiid is fewer than 1,000 points and 170 boards away from getting there. The former mark he’ll probably reach a third of the way through the season while the latter should only take him about a quarter. As long as Embiid stays moderately healthy this season, he’ll be in a great position to surpass 15,000 career points in the 2025-26 season.
800 blocks/moving up to 4th all-time on franchise leaderboard
Despite only entering the top 25 in games played for the 76ers this season, Embiid is all over the top of the franchise’s record books. The big fella has to swat 38 more shots to pass Theo Ratliff for fourth place on Philly’s all-time blocks list and 80 more shots to make it to 800.
Defense is going to be even more important for Embiid this season. He hasn’t received enough credit for how much a game-changing defender he is but that could change with a shift in mindset, especially with another All-Star shot creator by his side. Accelerating his ascent up the franchise leaderboard by locking all the way in on defense would be a welcome sight for Philly.
Tyrese Maxey: 5,000 career points
Sometime within the first 10 games of the season, Maxey will cross the threshold of 5,000 career points. He will become the 33rd player in franchise history to do so.
Maxey has played 266 regular-season games with the 76ers. Since the NBA-ABA merger, only seven players have scored more points through that same stretch to begin their Philly tenure. Excluding players who didn’t begin their NBA careers with the Sixers, Maxey jumps up to fifth place.
In addition to 5K points, Maxey will also reach 500 assists, 200 steals and 2,000 career field goals this season. There’s a real chance he gets to 1,000 rebounds, too. It will be all systems go for the young guard, who will almost certainly lead the 76ers in minutes per game and therefore have plenty of chances to accumulate stats.
Paul George’s ascent up all-time leaderboards
1,500 career steals
George can reach 1,500 career steals with just 36 more, climbing into the top 50 of the all-time leaderboard. George’s defense has been highly touted in the lead-up to the regular season so he may get there within the first quarter of the season. The top 50 on the all-time leaderboard is just 55 steals away.
Reaching top 10 on all-time 3-pointers leaderboard
Once he sinks 30 triples this season, George will leapfrog Jason Terry on the all-time list for three-balls. He’ll probably pass Vince Carter for ninth a few games later, as he only has eight more triples than Terry.
This season, George and Stephen Curry are on track to joining Carter, LeBron James and James Harden as the only players to be top 10 in career threes and top 50 in career steals. The 76ers’ new star forward has teammates who will be ascending on the all-time threes and steals leaderboards alongside him.
Eric Gordon: reaching top 15 of all-time 3-pointers leaderboard
Gordon and Kevin Durant need less than 100 threes each to surpass Paul Pierce in career three-balls.
The amount of playing time Gordon will get is not easy to gauge. Being a part of the Sixers’ early batch of free-agency signings suggests the team has a spot at the top of the bench, which will make it easier for him to climb the leaderboard. Gordon played at least 68 games in each of the last two seasons and made roughly two triples per game, so he should get into the top 15 by around the halfway point of the season even if his playing time diminishes.
Kyle Lowry: 1,500 career steals
Lowry is not far off from the top 50 of the all-time steals leaderboard. He needs only 34 more to reach 1,500 and rank in the top half-century.
Not once in Lowry’s 18-year NBA career has he averaged fewer than 0.9 steals per game. Even as his minutes dwindle in the twilight of his career, he has managed to average roughly a steal per game. He’s about to face a serious test this season, where his role could be smaller than ever. Nonetheless, he should notch this feat relatively easily.
Andre Drummond: 9th player with 11,000 rebounds, 1,100 steals, 1,100 blocks
Forgive the oddly specific stat counts at play here but Drummond is about to join a club whose only members are seven Hall of Famers and one future one.
With 329 more rebounds and six more steals, Drummond will join LeBron James, Karl Malone, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett, Hakeem Olajuwon, Robert Parish and Patrick Ewing as the only NBA players to accumulate 11,000 rebounds, 1,100 steals and 1,100 blocks. Drummond’s defense isn’t his most notable skill but Nick Nurse sees the value in his ability to disrupt offenses with deflections, steals and blocks.
Kelly Oubre Jr.: 1,000 career 3-pointers
Oubre is 89 triples away from the century mark, so he should reach it at some point in the second half of 2024-25. The efficiency he posts on his three-point shooting will be important to monitor.
Becoming a legitimately impactful three-point marksman should be his top priority. He’s got the volume and the confidence to let it fly but those alone won’t cut it on a championship hopeful. After shooting below 32 percent the last two seasons, he has to get his percentage back up to at least the league average.
Caleb Martin: 2,500 points, 500 assists and 250 steals
Martin has a few rounded numbers he’ll reach in key stats in the 2024-25 season. It will be a fitting way for the new 76ers wing to show his versatile style of play. The points and rebounds totals should be checked off within the first 20 or so games while the assists may take another 20.
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