This Is the Right Time for the Substitute Teacher Sixers

The 2019-'20 Sixers started off a feel-good 5-0 and ended with the worst vibes imaginable

Andrew Unterberger is a famous writer who invented the nickname 'Sauce Castillo' and writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey As Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard. 

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You can always tell at work when you're not really being supervised. Sometimes at a job, you're just lucky -- or unlucky, depending on what you're trying to get out of your experience -- enough to be toiling for no audience in particular, with the amount of effort you put into your position unlikely to be noticed or remarked upon no matter your performance. Perhaps a certain amount of self-respect or societal indoctrination pushes you to do your best at first, regardless of who’s watching. But soon enough you're acting like it's substitute teacher day, with you and your classmates visibly disinterested in bringing your A Game for someone who's only going to be putting a check mark for attendance next to your name anyway.

The substitute teacher in this analogy for the 2022-'23 Philadelphia 76ers isn't Doc Rivers -- though we can talk about his own performance and future prospects shortly. Rather, it's us. We’re there, and we're technically keeping an eye on things, but our real attention is just not on the Liberty Ballers right now. It's on the undefeated Eagles, still seemingly months away from playing an appointment unlikely to get steamrolled. It's certainly on the World Series-bound Phillies, still a perfect 5-0 at Citizens Bank Park, having flipped the switch from being an overpaid squad of unpersonable chokers to a charming band of indefatigable rogues, and now bathing the entire sports world in their light. Hell, maybe it's on Season Two of Abbott Elementary, which I hear from the internet is pretty good.

But it's not on the Sixers. It's just not. And from their one-eye-on-the-clock 1-3 start, you can sure tell that they can sure tell.

I'd be lying if I said it was the start I expected for a team I predicted to win 60 games or so this regular season. I expected them to basically cruise from the jump, a team that generally knew who they were and were skilled, deep and professional enough to take care of business consistently and relatively effortlessly. Maybe I'd have been a little more concerned if I'd have looked a bit closer at their opening schedule -- playing the Celtics and Bucks to start the season is certainly a bit of a nightmare, and traveling to Toronto for back-to-back games is a friggin' panic attack waiting to happen. But whatever, a loss or two would be fine as they settled into the regular-season groove, and soon enough I'm sure they'd hit the creamy part of their schedule where they're playing Charlotte and Detroit six times a week, stockpiling wins for the winter in the process.

Needless to say, groove is not in the heart yet for these 76ers. They technically got on the board last night with a double-digit home win over the presumably hapless Indiana Pacers, but that was their first W in four tries, and things have felt worse than their record. The team has been funky, and not in the Bootsy way: Joel Embiid has looked cranky and creaky, Tyrese Maxey is developing a late case of middle child syndrome, and the vaunted depth that was going to boost the team all regular season has felt more like a Halloween bag full of Good & Plentys and Werther's Originals. It seems like a team lacking in spirit, direction or common cause; while the Phillies are drowning one other in champagne and Robyn covers, the Sixers are awkwardly trying to avoid making eye contact in the not-WFC elevators.

All that said, my expectations for this team have not much changed. In fact, if anything, I might have undersold the team this year by being totally unmoved by any hopes of a Sixers James Harden 2.0; through four games he's been by far the most consistently productive Sixer, and does in fact look at least a little bouncier than last season -- though his defense has been putrid, and his 4-18 night against San Antonio was.a worthwhile reminder that the nights his jumper doesn't fall may still make him look horrendous. But with an active Harden and a softening-soon-enough schedule (and maybe even some time when the Eagles, Phillies and Flyers (?) aren't siphoning off all the Philly Sports Juice) I would expect that this team will still click into place at some point and be more or less rock-solid from there. There are concerns that might not be due to vanish anytime soon, about the lumpiness of the team's lineup never making for a totally smooth experience on either side of the ball, but to act overly alarmist about it during these early sleepwalking days would feel insincere, if not overtly concern-trolling.

What this team seems to be so far is an admission that, as predicted, this Sixers regular season doesn't really matter. Embiid has said he's not going for the MVP this season and boy has his play so far given credence to those words; he seems to be in that mid-career Shaq mode of playing himself into shape (and into actually caring) over the course of the year. Maxey seems like he's mostly trying physically, but emotionally he has perhaps realized that his bulb will burn out if it tries to provide the brightness and energy he did last year for 82 games again this season; by the end of the month construction workers are probably going to be stopping him on the street in Philly and telling him to smile more. The rest of the rotation seems ripe for tinkering -- three-guard-lineups, Paul Reed/Montrezl Harrell switch-ups, P.J. Tucker at center lineup -- as the Sixers ultimately find their comfort zone over the long haul.

And if not, well... there's one big card for Daryl Morey still to play, and one that might start burning a hole in his hand if the Sixers don't get a little less listless (more listed?) in the weeks to come. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Sixers are actively trying to get Doc Rivers fired, but if it comes increasingly evident that this is not a time likely to kick its own ass into gear when the time comes, they might need something of an external jump-start, and I'm sure the players know what that would mean. If they can't get it together in time for Doc's sake, then perhaps they are actively looking forward to the days of are making their own "Anti-Hero" edits to photo montages of Rivers patrolling the sidelines.

But in the meantime, this is fine. The Sixers and Heat are 1-3 and the Jazz and Spurs are 3-1. The 2019-'20 Sixers started off a feel-good 5-0 and ended with the worst vibes imaginable. These Sixers are still very much playing the afternoon side stage at this October's Phillypalooza, and while it'd be awesome to see them playing like they're still headlining for 50,000, it's much better that they do their jammy, meandering set now than at a gig where they'll actually be looked at to provide the stadium show experience. Until then, we just have to keep the faith that -- as with these postseason Phillies -- the team will finally show up when we actually do too.