Embiid: Jokic and Murray have been together for eight years - here, people stay one season then leave

Philadelphia 76ers' "process" has been going on for more than a decade, and the conference semifinals were the pinnacle. As of last night, the Sixers were officially eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. There's a lot to Joel Embiid's months-long injury and fall into the play-in zone, but this team has had several different superstars along with the center from Yaounde over the years and the results have been lacking each time.

Last year's MVP said that he does not feel well due to elimination and that one of the reasons that the same scenario is repeated every year is that the key components are regularly changed...

"Every year was the same - one person comes and then he's gone the next season. It's different now, Maxey made a breakthrough and was great all year. One of the ten best players this season. Now we could finally build a team around such a young player. And there is us older guys here, and we have a lot of space in the alary cap. One of the biggest things about winning, look at the others who have won, they didn't build a team for one season hoping to do it. This is the way we need to go, we want to build a good team and add quality players and level up," said Embiid.

The newly minted USA national team member used the opportunity to draw a parallel with Nikola Jokić's Nuggets.

"Let's just look at last year's champion, Denver. Murray and Nikola have been on the team together for what, eight years? Look at others, like Golden State, where the core has been together for a long time. I don't remember the last time a team was put together that succeeded after just one year".

Knicks' Cameroonian playoffs path - Embiid out of the way, now it's time for Siakam

After ten unsuccessful years, Embiid was part of various Philadelphia teams, but none of them managed to reach the finals. Although he said that the team needs to be better, he did not want to talk about what needs to be changed.

"It's not my job, it's up to the people who are paid to do it. It is up to us to be better every season, to work and improve. Maxey has improved a lot, and the situation is the same in the dressing room. It's up to me to work on my game and get better. I love this group, we were good and stuck together. The Knicks are now winning, playing together for a long time. I love these guys, I believe the team needs to make a number of decisions, but the group we've had this season is great. If some things hadn't happened, we would have had a chance. But it was not possible".

The excellent center was thrown off balance by injuries this season as well, but he is not giving up.

"You have to move forward. A few days ago I said, I will play as long as I can jump, as long as I can stand on the floor, even if my body doesn't listen to me. I love to play. I could have taken more time to recover when I got injured. But I didn't want to disappoint the team. I know we lost, I'm not going to look for excuses".

A little more about the defeat...

"We tried, we fought, but it wasn't enough. We wanted to provide the best, but sometimes not everything goes as you want. Everyone cares, we push each other forward and I am proud of the team".

About the upcoming summer and what follows next season.

"It will be interesting. We have a lot of room in salary cap, we can do good things. We'll see what happens. This is a good situation to be in, we have Maxey who is a future superstar and the face of the franchise. And I'm trying to make something great here. I love the team, but we have to do everything to be better. We will also see if the guys whose contracts are expiring will resign, and we have a lot of them".

The goals stay the same.

"Our goal is to win the title and every time it doesn't happen, I'm sorry. I don't care about the rest. Either we achieved our goal or we didn't. We believed every season that we could win the title, but it didn't go the way we wanted. I'm interested in what kind of future awaits us. We all need to be better, especially me. Maxey has the opportunity to do something special in the future, maybe even next season, and I am sure that he will be in the MVP talks, that he is ready for the next step".