Philadelphia 76ers: The Sixers aren't Philly tough...yet

Talent you can draft, but toughness is earned. Now’s the part of “The Process” where the Philadelphia 76ers learn what it means to be “Philly tough”.

When former Philadelphia 76ers GM Sam Hinkie assembled this team it was an unprecedented, much talked about ‘process’ that brought a level of talent to our Philadelphia that we have not had here since the 1980’s. We tanked season after season accumulating first round picks that finally started panning out when All-Star center Joel Embiid took the floor for 31 games last season.

I mean we had so many assets that we didn’t have space on the floor for all of them. So out went Nerlen Noel, Jahlil Okafor, Michael Carter-Williams, and in came Embiid, Ben Simmons, Markelle Fultz and Dario Saric. In all that transition and acquisition of marquee talent, the team jettisoned the one character ingredient that this young, uber-talented Sixers team is missing: toughness.

When the Sixers traded away Jrue Holiday to the New Orleans Pelicans, they traded the last player to wear a Sixers uniform that we knew would leave everything that he had out on the floor (a la Allen Iverson)

And now the rest of the NBA gets to watch our young nucleus blow double-digit leads time and time again. The blueprint is out and every team in the league seems to know it, if you want to beat the Sixers all you have to do is run up and down the court lackadaisically for two or even three quarters and then flip the switch, actually play defense, pressure apply the pressure and just like that the Sixers will buckle. It’s become a consistent narrative in over half of the Sixers 21 losses.

I’ve watched every game this season and this is not on head coach Brett Brown. In fact, he is probably one of the tougher people on the Sixers bench. Memo to Embiid, Simmons and yes even Fultz: “If you are going to represent the city of Philadelphia, you have got to bring it every night, leave it all on the floor and in the ‘process’ don’t take crap from anyone.”

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Think I am being too harsh? That I am a little off base? Well, let’s take a look back at the last time the Sixers were a relevant club in the NBA, and when the other teams in the league either feared or respected the red white and blue

When the Sixers reached the NBA Finals in 2000-2001 you never heard of anyone, let alone the team’s head coach, questioning the team’s mettle. Iverson, Eric Snow, George Lynch, Aaron McKie, Matt Geiger, Dikembe Mutombo…those guys were not all All-Stars but they were all grown men on that basketball court.

This current crop of Sixers has two objectively tough players, Saric and back up point guard T.J. McConnell, and that’s it.

Let’s go back a little further and take a look at the Sixers roster when Sir Charles Barkley entered the league in 1984. Besides the ‘Round Mound of Rebound’ the team also had Dr. J, Moses Malone, Mo Cheeks, Marc Iavaroni, Andrew Toney, Clint Richardson and Bobby freakin’ Jones…now you tell me, does this team have ANYONE on their current roster that plays with the passion on a nightly basis as ANY of those players outside of McConnell?

In my opinion, that’s an emphatic NO!

Oh, so some might make the case that they were an aging group and that was the culture of the game back then. Barkley came at the tail end of a Sixers run that had them battling every season against some of the greatest names and teams in NBA history. They were two years removed from sweeping the storied Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals…I didn’t say beating, I said sweeping. If you put this crew of Sixers against that Lakers team, the result would be embarrassing. To be fair you could say that about many of today’s NBA teams, but one thing was certain, you knew when you played the Philadelphia 76ers you were in for one hell of a battle.

Coach Brown might get faulted for something that he just can’t coach around, and that is a lack of mental, physical and emotional toughness. He has to be politically correct of course because in his position he can only say so much without damaging the credibility of his ability to develop this group of young players.

If Brown takes the fall for this woefully underachieving, vastly talented ball team it will be a catastrophic injustice akin to former Philadelphia Eagles coach Chip Kelly trading away Shady McCoy AND Nick Foles in the same offseason. And the result would be the same, we will struggle. Brown is a good, maybe great head coach. He is coaching a group of young Sixers that embody everything that is wrong in society today…lack of discipline, entitled attitude, false posturing, and lack of accountability. Who is our leader on the floor? Simmons, Embiid…who?

It’s not a coincidence that Ben Simmons has been REPEATEDLY challenged on the court, and it’ll most likely happen again. This is basketball, its entertainment, but its still a tough business played successfully by tough-minded individuals. The best thing to happen to Simmons so far this year is that he didn’t run into Kyle Lowry in that tunnel when he suggested that they meet off the court. Lowry almost ran to the tunnel, because HE IS Philly tough, through and through.

The bare knuckles of the equation is that Philadelphia hates fakes. It’s not just a basketball thing… it’s a Philly thing.

What the underlying story is though is that REAL Philadelphians can’t stand a fraud tough guy or a whippersnapper that has no understanding of the makeup of a man. Respect in Philadelphia is earned not just give because of your talent, but earned because of what you bring to the table every night. These young Sixers though rich in talent, are poor in life experience and grit. Although both are matchup nightmares, neither Simmons nor Embiid are real enough on a consistent basis to earn the respect of true Philly veterans. And you’ve heard it before but there is some truth in the old idiom that ‘real recognizes real’. It’s not that they can’t get there but it is very important for them to understand that until they get there to stay in their lanes and just play good, hard-nosed, tough basketball.

Philadelphia is known for its toughness, there is no other way to put it. I can’t sugar coat it, like Brown has been doing all season (until last nights post game interview), or spin it any other way. Our young, talented Sixers squad is just not tough enough. We preach it, we live it. That’s why the world knows about Philadelphia fans; why the Flyers were known as the Broad Street Bullies; why the underdog Eagles are headed to the Super Bowl; why every year you don’t count the Phillies out because we can (and have) soared from worst-to-first. Heck, our college teams are tough (Villanova, Temple, Drexel, St. Joe’s, La Salle). Toughness, heart, a protect-our-home-at-all-cost attitude is how we live and how we play. Lowry played for ‘Nova, former Temple head coach John Chaney had goons on his team. Come on man, we are Philly.

For this reason and this reason alone I really hope that the Sixers trade for LA Clippers ‘back up’ guard Lou Williams. Right now there is no one on the Sixers bench that can carry himself in a way that would demand that superstar players like Embiid respect him and he can show both Simmons and Fultz how to navigate in this league of grown men. Sweet Lou can bring his confident, stop-me-if-you-can attitude to the table, while at the same time providing the mental fortitude to close out games and has the proven talent to help this young team win games. It indeed is a rare thing to have this level of young talent in-house and growing together.

If Iverson had half of the talent that is on this current roster, all kinds of finals records would be broken. He exudes toughness, and it’s not always about the size of the man… it’s about the size of his heart.

Brown cannot teach toughness, he can’t teach grit. It’s hard for him to explain why we lose some games that we are not supposed to lose and at first, he thought it was just a young team making immature mistakes that can be correctable. As a head coach in the NBA, he is also limited in how he can teach discipline to this group of young men.

Brown served as assistant coach for a San Antonio team that just consistently puts a team on the floor that plays basketball the right way. If the Sixers played the right way, in the mold of the Spurs, we could probably hide some of our growing issues. But you won’t find too many people that would agree with you if you say, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili or anyone on the Spurs roster lacked toughness.

The Sixers could easily be 29-14, and a third seed in the Eastern Conference, as they inch closer to the All-Star break, but instead, they’re holding on to the eighth seed by the skin of their teeth while sitting only two games above .500. You can’t teach toughness no, but if you’re around it or have it, it is something that is contagious AND can be emulated.

As a lifelong Philadelphia fan, I’ve become used to watching our beloved Sixers lose very winnable games due to lack of effort, poor decisions and all without an ounce of fortitude that is usually not indicative of a Philadelphia squad. USUALLY, we lack the talent, but not in this case.

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This team is REALLY talented, ridiculously talented from top to bottom, and they realistically could be sitting in the top quarter of the Eastern Conference standings. No, they have the talent, but they lack the toughness. They can say that they won’t take any ‘crap’ while on the floor but once they play like they won’t take any ‘crap’ while on the floor, then the 76ers will be truly Philly tough.

Philadelphia 76ers: The Sixers aren’t Philly tough…yet

By Darren Yorkman | Jan 24, 2018

Talent you can draft, but toughness is earned. Now’s the part of “The Process” where the Philadelphia 76ers learn what it means to be “Philly tough”.

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