Can We Enjoy a Sixers Regular Season That Doesn't Really Matter?
The Sixers are uniformly believed to be one of the best teams in the East this year, with the deepest roster they've had in the entire Embiid era -- and nothing they do is really gonna mean shit until at least mid-May.
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Forgive the metaphor from someone who hasn't seriously played any video games not involving plastic instruments in two decades, but the most frustrating thing in sports is not ever getting to the save point. There should be a spot -- feels like there should be, anyway -- where you get to smack the Star Post to ensure that even if you don't make it to the end from there, you won't have to start again from the very beginning next time around. Especially when you've made it to a certain checkpoint a certain number of times, enough to prove, "OK, I know how to get at least this far." But no matter how far you get, sports doesn't allow you to mark your progress like that: The Dodgers won over 65% of their games for the fourth straight year before getting bounced in the NLDS this weekend, and they have to start next year from 0-0 just like everyone else.
As we all know, the Sixers' save point ought to be the second round of the playoffs. They've gotten there four out of the last five years -- the only time they didn't was the pandemic weirdness season with the Ben Simmons injury and the Horf scream -- and they've lost there each of those four years. By all rights they should've placed out of the regular season and first round by now; hell, last year was the only one of the first-round wins that was even particularly challenging for the Sixers, and that probably would've still ended in five games if Joel Embiid hadn't torn his thumb in Game Three. But instead, their season starts tonight, with the second round still a minimum of 86 games away, like a college student who deletes their final term paper and has to write the entire thing again from scratch. It's cruel, unforgiving, first-two-acts-of-Groundhog Day type shit.
So here we are: The Sixers are uniformly believed to be one of the best teams in the East this year, with the deepest roster they've had in the entire Embiid era -- and nothing they do is really gonna mean shit until at least mid-May. What are we supposed to do with that, exactly?
It's certainly funny that the Sixers start their season as a very clear third on the Philly Sports pecking order, overshadowed not only by the Phillies-starring Game 1 of the NLCS airing simultaneously tonight, but the 6-0 Eagles likely dominating sports radio all week in the wake of their home victory over the (now) 4-2 Cowboys. But it also kinda feels right: There's not that much juice with this team right now, at least compared to past regular season starts. There's new role players of course, and things to be worked out on and off the court. But there's no new stars, no new coach, and perhaps most crucially, no new drama. Will Ben Simmons be traded? Will Markelle Fultz remember how to shoot? Will a new Bryan Colangelo burner be found that calls Embiid a "no-good s*lly b*lly"? All critical questions for past Sixers teams -- but not this one, which just finished an entire breath-holding summer of pretending to actually be a normal team, and appears to have mostly gotten away with it.
If you're looking towards any Sixers to add some spice to this regular season, it's no doubt the two gentlemen starting in our backcourt this evening: Tyrese Maxey, universally expected to take another big step towards officially becoming King Shit Conqueror of Fuck Mountain, and James Harden, universally expected to... well, we're not as agreed on that one, but we'll be watching to figure it out. Those two dudes, and the potentially divergent paths their Q Ratings take among Sixers fans and the NBA at large, should no doubt provide some intrigue over a long regular season, as will their respective relationships with Embiid, with Doc and even with one another. And of course, it's probably unfair to Jo to assume we've seen all he has to offer us either; last year we figured some natural regression from his 2020-'21 campaign and were instead slapped in the face with the first 30/30 season by a big man since Wilt Chamberlain.
But no matter how much we see from any or all of them this regular season, there'll be That Thing hanging over the whole of it. Wow, Tyrese averaged 30 a game for a whole month? That's cool; let's see him do it in the second round of the playoffs. Harden and Embiid pick-and-roll setting the league on fire, carving up defenses to some Zach Lowe-enrapturing amount of points per possession? Fun stuff; let's see if it works as well in the second round of the playoffs. Furkan Korkmaz, shooting the lights out and feeling his fingertips like he was Little Stevie Wonder? Good times but let's see if he can even stay on the court in the second round of the playoffs. All of our new guys: P.J. Tucker, Danuel House Jr., De'Anthony Melton..... sure, they're looking reliable now, but are we really gonna be able to trust them in the second round of the playoffs? The Second-Round Scaries are gonna tint absolutely everything about the team this year.
The only way to deal with it, really, is to accept that Sixers regular season basketball is its own thing, worth treasuring independent of anything that happens with the team beyond. The really stark thing about this Phillies run for me is the realization of just how few memories of any kind I have of the prior 11 years of Philly baseball: There are occasional pops -- Cole Hamels' no-hitter, Bryce Harper's walk-off grand slam, Domonic Brown's one good month -- but mostly just a decade and change of grey-hued mush, entire seasons and eras merging in my head into a single dispiriting 8-3 September loss. For better and worse, that's been the exact opposite of the last 11 years of Sixers basketball; there are losses even from the 10-win 2015-'16 campaign I recall better than a Purpose-era Justin Bieber single. I can recite countless Embiid regular season stat lines, sometimes by quarter; I still refuse to delete the Maxey games against Memphis and Miami last year from my DV-R. The Sixers' regular season is a gift to be cherished, not a trial to be endured, particularly in a season engineered for Oct-Apr success such as this one; it can be weird and wonderful and once-in-a-lifetime even if the team disappoints again in the playoffs.
Or not. This one's up to each of us, really; we've paid our regular-season dues by this point, and unlike the actual team, we can reserve the right to mentally check out a little until that should-be-save-point this season. I'm psychotic enough to still be on tilt for all 86-plus games regardless -- I just got back from my one-man parade down Broad Street to commemorate what I can only assume is the team's only undefeated preseason of my lifetime -- and there's a lot that I'm looking forward to about it. But if you feel like penciling rest games into your schedule this year like so many of us will be begging for Joel to do, I wouldn't fault you for it. It's been a long run of alarm clocks waking us up to Sonny & Cher at 6:00, we'd be forgiven for snoozing a little until the team proves they can actually break the cycle.