Section 215
Fansided

We Have a new Front-Runner for Worst Anti-Sixers Tanking Article Ever

By Tim Kelly

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I’ve recently taken a break from writing articles defending the Sixers, mostly because I was busy writing about the Eagles late-season collapse. Given the fact that we are still months away from the NFL draft and the Flyers and Phillies aren’t good enough to warrant any extra attention, the Sixers are in the process of shifting back to the center of Philadelphia’s attention.

And as of late, the Sixers have become a fun team to watch. The team appears to be gaining some traction together, and it has been more than just Michael Carter-Williams and Nerlens Noel, mixed with the promise of Joel Embiid and another top-pick that have energized the fanbase. Tony Wroten, despite his deficiencies off the ball, is developing into an energetic piece that looks like he has a long-term future somewhere in the NBA as a sixth man. Robert Covington, who played with Houston’s D-League team last year, has been one of the best three-point shooters in the NBA this year. K.J. McDaniels was the steal of the draft and is an athletic freak that the team needs to lock-up this off-season.

The Sixers have won three of their last five, which probably isn’t a sign of what’s to come in the immediate future, but does offer some hope for the future.  The team has more wins than both the Knicks and Timberwolves, but strangely enough, no one is suggesting that either of those teams are ’embarrassing the NBA’. Imagine that: the national media is quick to blast a Philly team but gives the one in New York a pass.

Khalid Salaam of Slam Magazine, who claims to be a Sixers fans, wrote a long article for Slam today discussing the Sixers tanking plan. I’ve read the article five times now, and I’m not exactly sure what his point is. The caption for the article says that the Sixers plan could ‘threaten the NBA’ and then he ends the article discussing how the Sixers fanbase’s patience will be tested by the remainder of this season.

I’ve read plenty of Salaam’s work, and he’s far from a lazy or poor writer, but that’s what this article came off as. Slam Magazine figured they were due to put out an anti-Sixers article, like nearly other media outlet has, and Salaam managed to paint Philadelphia as puppets who have lost their edge and have fallen into Sam Hinkie’s trap.

Here are some of the highlights, if you want to call them that, of the article.

"On May 26, 2012, the Philadelphia 76ers sparred with the Celtics in Game 7 of the second round of the Playoffs. The game itself ultimately exposed the Sixers as pretenders, but still, they made it to the Elite 8. They were a young team full of holes with maybe a chance to make a name in the coming years if certain things broke their way. They had upside, if nothing else."

Well, that’s just not true. That level was the furthest that the Sixers were going to go with Andre Iguodala as the best player on the team, which is why they traded him in the Dwight Howard deal to bring Andrew Bynum to Philly. That move didn’t work out.

Frankly, the Sixers were overmatched by the Celtics in the second-round of the playoffs, a team that would ultimately take LeBron James and the Heat to seven games in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Sixers were even more overmatched by the Bulls in the first-round, but were the beneficiaries–for lack of a better term–of Derrick Rose tearing his ACL. If not for that, they would have exited the playoffs in the first-round for the second straight season.

Michele Roberts, head of the league’s player’s union, also contributed a lazy statement to the article.

"“If I lived in Philly I don’t know if I’d buy season tickets,” says Michele Roberts, head of the NBA player’s union. “Players aren’t happy with what the Sixers are doing and at the end of the day, the Philadelphia fans watching the team play have the right to see a competitive sport."

Kool. No one is forced to buy season tickets to anything.

Veteran players may not be happy with what is going on in Philly, but the young players in Philly seem to be embracing the building process. In fact, veteran Jason Richardson has defended the team and praised the culture.

"“I’ve been on losing teams,” Richardson said. “I’ve been on teams where they’ve been rebuilding, and it’s just been miserable coming in, day after day for practice, because guys didn’t want to be here, guys wanted to be traded. … It’s totally different in this locker room. These guys come in here and bust their butts every day — practice, shootaround, games. Every day, night in and night out.”"

And the fans in Philly do have a right to see ‘a competitive sport’. Going to the playoffs and losing to whatever team LeBron plays on in five games every season isn’t what a majority of Philadelphia would deem as competitive. Building a team with high draft-picks is done in the hope that the Sixers can actually compete with some of the big teams, not just be allowed to play on the same court as them.

John Mitchell provided the most dumbfounding insight to the article.

"Philadelphia Inquirer sportswriter John Mitchell, who worked the Sixers beat when Hinkie first arrived, puts it this way: “They place so much on getting Draft picks, but who is to say that the players are going to be good? Michael Carter-Williams, I mean I know it’s only been one year, but he doesn’t look like a superstar. Then you have a 6-11, 211-pound power forward.”"

Michael Carter-Williams was the 11th pick in the draft. Who ever suggested that he was going to be a superstar? He certainly has his flaws, but he did win Rookie of the Year and appears to have been the best value pick in the 2013 NBA Draft.

Nerlens Noel, who is actually 228 pounds, is exactly what he has been billed as: a great defender who is a freak athlete but very raw on the offensive side of things. He wasn’t a number one pick, he was a piece the Sixers acquired with another first-round pick. If the team doesn’t feel like they are best-served with him, they may very well draft Karl-Anthony Towns or Jhalil Okafor in next year’s draft. No one in Philly is married to Noel, or suggesting that he is going to be a superstar.

My favorite part of the article was the part where Salaam inadvertently arrived at the fact that the NBA created this system.

"The franchise is now serving as a flesh-eating bacteria of sorts on the NBA’s collective self-respect. As they lose more games and people outside of sports begin to understand what’s happening, there’s potential here to discredit the entire League."

A flesh-eating bacteria, that has won three games out of five. I get it, they only have seven wins, but they are the third worst team in the league at the time of this article being written. If that’s how the Sixers are described, what does that makes the Knicks, who opened the year trying to compete for a playoff spot?

And in reality, the NBA should be embarrassed by the Sixers plan. They should be embarrassed that the league’s competitive balance is so off that a team feels like doing this is their best chance to be anymore than just another team in the league. The point of sports isn’t to just be competitive, it’s to try to win championships.

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At some point, people should begin to look at the league’s structure as a whole which seems to keep small-market teams, and even big-markets like Philly, from ever becoming annual championship contenders. Ripping the Sixers just distracts from the actual problem.

One of the many themes of this off-topic article was that the Sixers don’t have a fallback plan. I’d argue that they do. If the plan falls flat on its face, then the Sixers will continue to collect top draft picks, which eventually will pan out in some sort of way. It could only work partially, and the Sixers could return to being an annual sixth through eighth seed. Or it could work. It’s hard to tell that when the plan hasn’t actually been given a chance to fail yet.

It seems to go over everyone who isn’t a fan of this plan that the Sixers weren’t trying to be good this year. Next year is probably going to be the year that the Sixers take off the ‘tanking’ label, and look to be a team that works towards being competitive. From the players that they’ve drafted that have reached the court thus far, it looks like they have drafted well and will be set up to start competing with a close-knit, us-against-the-world core. Considering that Joel Embiid and Dario Saric have not played yet, and the Sixers own five first-round picks over the next three seasons, I’m not sure where the overwhelming evidence that the plan is failing is.

Certainly, I’d suggest you read the article if you are old-school/delusional. If you want to hear Larry Brown talk about how analytics ‘don’t mean squat’ or how Howard Eskin doesn’t like the plan, it’s a great read.