Competitive finish the key to ‘successful’ season
PHILADELPHIA >> Josh Harris once saw his 76ers play 82 times, lose 63 games, and lose their professional dignity.
“Huge,” he would call that 2013-2014 season, “success.”
Huge? That season? Did somebody miss something?
The cackling began at once, the outrage followed, and the next time the Sixers’ owner had a chance to play word-association in the context of a sorry basketball season, he’d be careful not to be so gushing. Instead, he likely would wait for a season like the one the Sixers had been building … until recently.
Presenting not one but two Rookie of the Year candidates, more than doubling their victory total from a year earlier, boosting attendance, pushing into regular sports-talk-radio conversation, the 2016-2017 Sixers were nothing if not compelling. By the time they would uncork a 10-5 January, their fans would regularly fill the Wells Fargo Center, roaring approval and yodeling “Trust the Process,” a tribute both to Joel Embiid and whatever it was that the Sixers had been trying to achieve.
Finally, the Sixers were back. And then? “In the last two weeks, we lost Nerlens (Noel) and Ersan (Ilyasova), who were two of our key players,” Nik Stauskas was saying Friday, in the locker room before a game against the Knicks. “We lost Joel for the season. We heard that Ben Simmons is not going to come back at all this year. Right there, you have four of our best players, four guys who would have made the biggest contributions and biggest impacts on the game, and all of a sudden they wouldn’t be playing another game for us the rest of the season.
“If you look around the league and go around to any other team, and you take four of their best players and just sit them out, it’s going to change a lot of things. But I think with the group we have here today, we really do care about each other. I think we do play well with each other. And I think we’ve shown all year, no matter who is hurt or no matter who is in, we have been able to rally and try to win games. So I’m pretty confident that no matter the injuries, no matter who was traded, that we are going to find a way to stay on pace.”
The Sixers were down to their final 22 games Friday night, which doesn’t sound like much, but is more than a quarter of a season. They were also down to one mission, and it was not a championship, not a playoff spot, not the chance to be close to a playoff spot. The mission, whether they would say so out loud or not, was to protect what they’d already achieved.
Had the season ended already, and had Harris claimed satisfaction, few would have accused him of spreading fake news. Yet if a team without Ilyasova, Embiid, Noel and Simmons bumbles through March and collapses into April, then the owner’s window for declaring organizational brilliance will be compromised.
Though the Sixers had their memorable January and may have Dario Saric as the Rookie of the Year, they did begin the season on a seven-game losing streak, did lose nine of their first 10, and did lug a three-game losing streak into the Knicks game, having lost two nights earlier by 27.
Brett Brown, who has been made to front for an organizational philosophy that has been slow to yield on-court results, is a fringe candidate for Coach of the Year. But his most important task as the final 20 games approach is to protect what has already been achieved. And didn’t the Sixers lose 14 of their last 15 last season?
“Last year was the longest coaching experience that I have ever had in my life,” Brown said. “And there is a lot of basketball left to be played. With the work that these guys have done, they have on so many levels over-achieved, and with an unlikely group. We don’t have any, ‘Here’s the ball, go to work’ guys. If we don’t do whatever we do as a team, we don’t have much, if anything. So that’s the easiest way to say it and sell it.
“There is a lot of basketball left. And the work that we’ve put in, I am proud of these guys. I’m really proud of them. I love coaching them. They play with spirit.”
The spirit was recognized by the fans, in the press and in the comments seeping out of other locker rooms. The Sixers have been better this season, deeper in talent, less likely to back into losses. They deserve to enter the offseason with their record and their reputation improved.
“We’re on the right track,” Stauskas said. “And we know that each game is an opportunity for us to get better and move one step closer to a team that competes for a championship. So we’re all motivated. We’re excited for the opportunity we have in the last 20 games. With the injuries, a lot of guys are going to have a chance to step up and play minutes and prove themselves. “So we’re excited.” Whatever happens, the Sixers can claim some 2017 success. With a reasonable finish, it might not even sound funny.