The Quality Drainage of the 76ers

Want to know what is preventing the NBA from rising out of the third/fourth place ranking in the American sports market?



The Philadelphia 76ers.

No, the Mavericks won 123 - 70. #76ers
— Did the 76ers Win? (@DidThe76ersWin) November 14, 2014

It may not seem like a big deal, especially when the NBA has bigger problems like bloated season, flopping, the LeBron lovemaking, the existence of a basketball team called the Pelicans, and the fact that the Seattle Supersonics still hasn’t returned. There are bigger things, and let’s not even get started on Adam Silver wanting to bank in on sports gambling (which will open up a Pandora’s Box that the league may never be able to control). But the 76ers are wrecking the NBA, honestly.

This awful Philly team is leading the wave of floppers, quitters, and might-as-well-be-non-existent teams that are just coasting through the season without conflict, without a plan, without an attempt to be in the playoffs. They are run by awful management that smokescreens the idea of getting good picks to cover up the fact that they are just in the league to collect the profits and nothing more. Losing by over 50 points to any team while being a professional team is inexcusable. Only the 86 Celtics, 96 Bulls, 96 Sonics (Sorry, needed to reference that former franchise again), 87 Lakers, and 92 Bulls should beat you by that much---nobody else.

There is no way that a collective group of players who dreamed, worked, sweated, bled, clawed, sacrificed, and viciously fought their way into the professional field would throw games. This isn’t the fault of the players, it’s the fault of the lottery system, and the decision to not attempt to put out the best product on the court by upper management. This style of survival in the NBA is bad for the coaches, bad for the players having their basketball lifespan get sacrificed unfairly, and bad for the league because every match they play is essentially a throwaway game---like the one against the Mavericks. There were people reading the newspaper in Dallas midway through the second quarter because the game was so stupidly out of reach.

Do you really want to go to your home court to watch the 76ers play? Of course you don’t. You would rather pay to see two teams put out full effort. This mindset is extremely damaging. Unlike the other leagues that sells hope (NFL and its extremely streamlined 16-game schedule), the NBA from the very beginning eliminates a slew of ballclubs from ever considering competing for a shot at the playoffs, let alone the title. There is this belief that there is no hope to catch fire mid/late season and sneak their way to the top like the Royals of 2014, the Ravens of 2013, and the *insert yearly catching fire NHL team*. Automatically, you see white flags being held up left and right, and the 76ers are your prime example.

Look what happened the night after the beatdown: they took the Rockets to the very end of the game. Granted this team isn’t going to win a championship, but they should be able to at least put up some sort of fight and stay relevant. I assure you the massive backlash contributed to the actual attempt to win a basketball game the night after. But with a world that communicates a lot better, faster, and with more research to choose from, you cannot throw a game and expect to get away with it.

Adam Silver needs to address this because pure suckage teams like the 76ers waters down the overall product. And yes, we have always had bad teams every single season, but before there was more bite in the junkyard dogs of the conference boondocks. Even the first-year Vancouver Grizzlies notoriously talked trash to MICHAEL JORDAN ON HIS PRIME one night. Do you currently see anyone in Philadelphia attempt to talk trash to a high-caliber team like the Warriors or Spurs? I severely doubt it.

I have always dreamed of a concept that would force the worst teams to have to fight to deserve their spot in the NBA by competing in a tournament against the D-League squads. And yes I know that 999 out of 1000 times we will see the awful NBA team walk out alive, but the scare alone would prevent pathetic teams from continuing its patheticness without punishment. It devalues the league having teams like the Philadelphia 76ers behave the way they are currently behaving. No team that used to have Wilt Chamberlin and Charles Barkley should behave like this----ever.

Until the NBA fixes this issue, it can never be a competitive league to the likes of the NFL (Which is the best at this, I shall admit), the MLB (Which saw 12 teams hit Wild Card Berth territory in September), and the NHL (Which seemingly shuffles its playoff teams every year). The 76ers are a cancer, and it needs to be controlled.