Morgan Freeman has a monologue in the movie Shawshank Redemption where he says, “I do believe those first two years were the worst for him” gently referring to the horrible daily trauma endured by his friend Andy Dufresne, “…and I also believe that if things had gone on that way, this place would have got the best of him.” What if no one intervened and that just kept going on day after day, year after year? Being a Sixers fan shouldn’t feel like this!!
I have tried for the last 2 weeks to find some positives with the Sixers, something to write about that wasn’t just typing FOLD THE FRANCHISE a million times like Jack Nicholson in the Shining. I can’t do it.
This has been the worst season I can remember from my roughly 30 years of Philly sports awareness. It’s one thing to be bad, but it’s soul crushing to think you are a contender and have to slog through another lost year. This season was supposed to be different. It wasn’t just about getting Paul George, it was about having a competent and well rounded team on both sides of the ball. We were deep with versatile defenders and scorers. Embiid was going to be the safety valve on both sides, not the engine. Maxey was going to ascend. Even if we didn’t win this year, we were going to look like a real threat.
Instead, the only things we are any good at are injuries, ineffectiveness, and bullshit. Then there was Jared McCain. The dancing, nail painting, skipping with Tyrese Maxey, snow poet was here to bring just a little sunshine to this putrid wasteland of a team. But even that had to be snuffed out. Just when it looked like we might return to some semblance of normalcy with Joel Embiid, he breaks his face again and Jared McCain tears his meniscus. Really basketball? You couldn’t give us one thing to enjoy?
What the hell happened? Well, injuries mostly. The role players are all banged up. George and Maxey have both missed time. Embiid has missed even more time with more to come. Now rookie of the year front runner McCain is set to miss a lot of time. We are 8-16 with 58 games to play, somehow only 1.5 games out of the play-in tournament.
That last part is the killer. This team is stubbornly still going to try to make the playoffs. Because only the teams trying to fail have no chance at the postseason, we will be in the running the rest of the year. That tantalizing hope is going to bite us. Embiid will come back and probably play around 30 games. He and George will not play back to backs. When only Maxey plays, teams do whatever they can to stop him. Even if we go .500 the rest of the season, we will finish 37-45. That was good enough for the 10th seed last year and a quick beating. Don’t get your hopes up, this team will have no chance against a healthy Celtics team if they even get out of the play-in.
Should we prefer they keep losing for better lottery odds? At their current pace they will finish around 25-57, good enough for 7th worst last year. Don’t go getting your hopes up about this either. This year’s draft pick is protected only 1-6. Because we traded Al Horford to the Thunder years ago (only for him to return to the Celtics to kill us) we owe them our pick this year. Prepare yourselves for the ultimate kick in the dick this season: finishing 7th after the lottery. It is going to happen.
It keeps getting worse though. Embiid has barely played and looks like he has peaked at both his ability and availability (the best ability?). He might not be done done but his standing as a top player in the league day in day out is OVER. Then there is the possibility that he is done done. In either case, that is a killer. Everything else with this team is just noise. The fate of Embiid is the fate of the Sixers. Not only is he the fulcrum of the team on both ends, but he represents about 1/3 of the team’s payroll for the next 5 years. That contract is not going away. If he can’t play, we have no chance. It will be 5 years of abyss as Paul George just gets older too.
I truly loved the Process Sixers. I hated the mediocrity and boredom that came with the post Iverson years. That was a change, a way to get to the top. We were on our way too. It is just cruel that after ten years, we are more entrenched in mediocrity than ever.
Andy Dufresne crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side. The Sixers just keep crawling through more and more shit.
Philly Front Office 
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