76ers fans shouldn’t get too excited about Stephen A. Smith’s NBA Finals prediction

Stephen A. Smith recently made a bold prediction on ESPN’s First Take about the Philadelphia 76ers making a trip to the NBA Finals during the 2019-20 season.

Thanks to a successful offseason, the Philadelphia 76ers will rightfully enter the 2019-20 season as one of the early favorites to make a run at the NBA Finals in the Eastern Conference.

After coming up short in each of the last two seasons in the semifinals, the pressure will be on the Sixers heading into the upcoming season to show they can in fact get over the hump of advancing past the semifinals.

This will obviously be easier said than done, but the good news for Philadelphia is when looking at the current roster of talent to work with, there’s every reason in the world to feel confident about it happening.

With that being said, Stephen A. Smith recently made a bold prediction on ESPN’s First Take how the Sixers are his selection to represent the Eastern Conference in this year’s NBA Finals.

Surprising? As mentioned before, the talent Philadelphia has to work with on their current roster gives fans plenty of reasons to be excited, but also there are no guarantees when it comes to the spot.

Despite some of the frustration surrounding the Sixers in free agency over the losses of Jimmy Butler and J.J. Redick, the argument can be made the team upgraded in a way by bringing both Josh Richardson and Al Horford on board.

Take these additions into consideration with Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Tobias Harris, the Sixers arguably have the best starting lineup in the Eastern Conference.

But until Philadelphia goes out on the court, and proves this lineup can be effective, predictions such as the one Smith gave last week should be taken with as little excitement as possible.

Otherwise, it’s only going to add unnecessary pressure to the Sixers when it comes to trying to live up to the high expectations that are already in place for the upcoming season.

So while it’s great to hear experts such as Smith praise Philadelphia for the work put in this offseason to be in great position to make a run at the NBA Finals over the next few months, it’s time to pump the brakes for now.

Maybe once the regular season does officially get underway, and the Sixers can show this team is in fact the real deal, well then it would seem appropriate for fans to begin getting excited about a potential run at the NBA Finals.