Expectation of success has 76ers back on course
CAMDEN, N.J. » The 76ers have not been in the playoffs since 2012, when Markelle Fultz was 12, when Ben Simmons was 14, when Dario Saric was becoming a teen-aged basketball legend in Croatia.
What do they know about the time Julius Erving windmilled on Michael Cooper, when Allen Iverson climbed over Tyronn Lue, when Charles Barkley used to troll the Boston Celtics with insults, some muffled, most not?
They can stroll past the mini-statues of the franchise legends every day on their way into their training center, and they still might not know the real story they were planted there to tell: That their organization, too, once didn’t tank entire seasons.
So it was Thursday at a team dinner that Brett Brown was happy that it ended with a show. A big-screen TV was brought into the room, and some Sixers’ season highlights were shown, right up to Game 82, when Fultz went for a triple double.
Then … there was a message from Doc. And one from A.I. And one from Sir Charles.
The message: The 76ers are supposed to be good. Them? “You have Charles Barkley looking out on a very largescreen TV, and Julius Erving looking out from a very largescreen TV, and Allen Iverson looking out from a very large TV, and talking to the guys,” Brown said. “It’s like they were in their living room. And they were telling stories and messaging, and there is recent footage.
“I’d seen the video, so I knew it was coming. But I just pivoted around and watched our team’s faces. And it’s powerful messaging on the culture we are trying to build and reflect on the history that we have.”
Left unsaid was that the No. 1 reason the Sixers needed a culture-reset is because they were so willing for the past five years to lose games in order to win assets. The culture-drain was deliberate, and it was wrong, and it was unprofessional. But it is over. And so, the haz-mat cleanup has begun.
The Sixers won 52 games this season, and likely will win 53, 54, 55 and 56 in a first-round series against Miami that begins Saturday at 8 in the Wells Fargo Center. One reason was that they have embraced success in a way that’s uncommon in professional sports, with players OK with winning games, even at the cost of their own playing time.
“There is a film of Markelle getting his 10th rebound the other night,” Brown said. “Watch the reaction of the team, when he got the tripledouble. Watch the reaction of teammate T.J. McConnell, whose minutes he took. Say no more. That’s what I had hoped to grow from Day 1. That’s the culture I had hoped to be a part of and facilitate.
“It’s a tremendous snapshot of what makes us quite unique.”
The Sixers are unique. When Joel Embiid is active, they have a seven-foot stretchfive with reasonable threepoint shooting range. They have a 6-10 point guard who can create offense from 60 feet away and who plays with the fundamental precision of a lost-era power forward around the basket. They have multiple three-point shooting options.
And … they have a each other’s success.
“It might receive a little more attention because we’re winning,” Brown said. “But the Philadelphia media knows what I know. The foundation of our program is strong. You go to any builder or architect and they’ll tell you the base has to be strong. And our base is strong. The foundation is strong, the chemistry is strong, the culture is strong.”
Just the same, Brown believed there was one more necessary layer of strength. And it could be valuable against Miami, a franchise that has been used to winning, not generations ago, but joy in recently. He had to make sure the Sixers knew that their franchise once was used to postseason success, too.
“That was very impressive,” Fultz said of the video. “After seeing that, I felt like I wanted to get out there and play. It really hyped us up to see everybody who played for the program before us and to see them now, just really rooting for us.”
To win a round, or two, or three, or a parade, the Sixers will need to shoot well, stay healthy, be diligent on the defensive boards and defend with their usual passion. But after so many years of being conditioned to believe otherwise, just expecting to succeed could be their best play of all. It worked before. It’s all there on film.