The Sixers are awful. No getting around that at this point.
Last season was a complete disaster if you cared about the win column for Philadelphia. In fact, it was comically bad at time after the Sixers got off to a surprising start with Michael Carter-Williams‘ emergence and players like Evan Turner and Thaddeus Young trying to play their way out of that rebuilding mess.
In the end, Philadelphia was tanking. There was no hiding it. They were doing it almost unabashedly.
And this year, it feels like the Sixers are doing it again. Nerlens Noel is a rookie after missing all of last season recovering from his torn ACL and third overall pick Joel Embiid is likely not playing this year either.
Philadelphia is going to be bad. Comically bad. Again.
General manager Sam Hinkie though is not worried about this. It is all part of the plan and Hinkie is not looking for validation of his plan from the outside as he told Derek Bodner of Liberty Ballers:
“I tell people that I think a lot of it is where does your self-worth come from? Do you need people every day telling you you’re doing well? Do you need the masses every day telling you that they agree with you, or do you have some higher purpose in life?
We’re all competitive, me as much as anybody. We had lots of long nights and worked our tails off trying to do what we could in this phase that we’re in.
It’s really important not to take your eyes off what matters. And what matters is not feeling great about yourself the 3rd of March, but to give yourself a chance to feel great about yourself the 3rd of June.”
The Sixers probably will not be feeling great heading into June for some time. It still feels like the Sixers are at the beginning stages of their rebuild with just a few players one might even call NBA-caliber. No offense to those guys. There will not be a lot of wins.
Sixers fans have to be asking themselves if this pain is worth it.
According to Zach Lowe of Grantland, there is broad support for some kind of reform to the NBA’s Draft Lottery system. And it could happen this year.
It’s hard to know now if this concern is valid, and there appears to be broad support among the league’s 30 teams for the NBA’s proposal, per several sources. Ownership groups could vote on it as early as this season, and a powerful distaste for Philly’s multiyear [sic] tanking adventure is driving the reform movement.
So it even seems now that Hinkie’s little venture may not produce many fruits either.
Philadelphia basketball is just a bottomless pit of despair it would seem. And the general manager is just chugging along as his franchise gets grounded into oblivion with such a blatant exploitation of the rules’ loopholes.
Even after three lottery picks, it is hard to say they even have a championship core.
June seems a long way off for Philadelphia.
