Last night marked the 4th straight loss for the 76ers. There is no reason to care about the Sixers this year and that’s why the fans should stop going to the games and supporting the team.
What management is doing is egregious. Yes I used egregious and I barely know what it means but I know it’s pretty bad. Management has taken a great basketball city and pooped on it saying that, “we’re preparing for the future”. This sounds good but as I far as I know, it’s going to be the distant future and management saying, “hey we did it and it’s only 2033” doesn’t cut it.
It’s a cockamamey plan to think that high draft picks result in good players. Nerlens Noel is 7ft tall and didn’t get a rebound until 2:40 left in the 4th quarter last night (he had 6 steals and 5 asst’s which is the bright side)! He may turn out to be a star but he could also be a Michael Olowokandi. This isn’t a fool proof strategy that the Sixers are implementing and there is a fundamental reason why I have doubts, they aren’t building a team, they are getting talent.
Teams win. 5 players lose. Spurs are the perfect example and I understand not many teams are the Spurs. They haven’t had a lottery pick since 1997 winning at least 50 games a season. Using the Spurs is only a model of what works and there are other ways to do so. Getting Lebron James on your team helps as well. Currently the Sixers have no superstar, questionable raw talent, no team chemistry, and a period of too many losses to feel good about.
If the fans don’t go to a single game, what would the Sixers do? The Sixers averaged around 14,000 fans last year to home games, way more than I thought. Total people multiplied by the average ticket price of $30, times 42 games is 17.6 million dollars not including revenue from food and apparel. Joshua Harris, the Sixers owner, should have to foot a bill for 20 million dollars during this little experiment and see how happy he is at the end of the day. The fans have had enough with this losing on the weak promise of wins in the future. I don’t support losing and neither should you.
I 100% agree. They’re making a joke out of the league and ruining the integrity of it. Who says its even going to work?
I think the franchise is done. I don’t think they will be back to where they were any time soon and I’m not talking playing competitive basketball. I mean fan support. Even when they were alright, people didn’t care. Now after this whole thing? Screw them.
The NBA should adopt the format soccer leagues around the world have. The 3 last place teams at the end of the season get sent down to the 2nd Division. That would prevent the Sixers from doing this. That will never happen but it would be cool.
I disagree that the franchise is done. If this happened in the early 2000s when they were good, maybe, but they’ve been pretty irrelevant for a long time now, so I don’t think the fan base is that big to begin with. They’ve won one playoff series since 03-04, and that was only because Derrick Rose got injured. But if you start winning, and Noel / Embiid are studs, I think people will definitely start tuning in.
As far as how they’re doing it, it’s obviously not the most noble/ethical thing. Trying to lose defeats the purpose of the game, I agree, but think of it this way: They’ve floundered around at .500 and been a 7-8 seed in the playoffs every other year, getting bounced in the first round for the last 10 years. That’s a bad product, and there’s no real reason to think it was going to change any time soon. A line-up of MCW, Turner, Iggy, Thad, and Hawes is going to win you some games, but you’ll never be good. At least with Noel and Embiid there’s something to look forward to.
Basically, I don’t think trying to lose is how it should be done, but that’s how the league has made it. The Spurs are an anomaly. Other than them, the teams that have won recently all had huge star power:
Heat (Absurd)
Mavs (Dirk was a beast that year)
Celtics (Original Big Three)
Lakers (Kobe Kobe Kobe)
The Sixers had no shot with the path they were on. It’s a flaw in the league. As the league, I don’t think you can fault a team for playing by the (bad) rules and doing what they think will give them the best chance of winning in the future. However, as the fans, I do think we have every right to be pissed off, because they’re unwatchable. But I understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.