Matching Sixers to Each Song on This Week's Billboard Hot 100 Top 10
Here's which Sixer I pair with each of the 10 most popular songs in America this week.
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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Journalists -- or whatever you want to call us -- are always at the mercy of our news cycles. So as a pop music and Philadelphia 76ers writer, when there's not a lot going on in either the worlds of the charts or the slop, it can be tough times for coverage. Yes, I have thoughts on the two new Billie Eilish songs debuting in the lower half of the Billboard Hot 100 this week, but not enough to fill a decent-sized column before she's already moved on to whatever's next. Yes, I can rant about the league's tampering investigation into the Sixers and how it's not actually cheating until you get caught and penalized (and not definitely even then), but probably not without getting a little too Al Davis (or Alex Jones) for comfort. I'll leave that to the true professionals.
A good time, then, to cross the streams: Let's take a look at where we're at with the Sixers this offseason via the largely dormant Billboard Hot 100 top 10, where the only new song this week is a song that was already fallen out of the top 10 back in June. Here's which Sixer I pair with each of the 10 most popular songs in America this week.
No. 1: Lizzo, "About Damn Time" (Joel Embiid)
It is certainly about damn time for Joel Embiid to finally have a full season's worth of a worthy supporting cast -- one that many claim is the best he's ever had, which I agree with, at least in terms of the regular season -- and actually make a push for the third round of the playoffs. I'm not sure yet that the improvements we've made to the roster on the margins are enough to appreciably change our title odds, though; that'll be more about those two guys in the backcourt and whether the older one can have a bounce-back year while the younger one makes another great leap forward. If there's one thing we've learned about our perennial MVP candidate from the last two seasons, though, it's to not assume that we've already seen the best the big man has to offer; bitch, this year he might be better.
No. 2: Harry Styles, "As It Was" (James Harden)
Folks around the NBA have wanted to say goodnight to James Harden's prime since he first arrived in Philadelphia; certainly his play towards the end of the regular season and for most of the highest-leverage situations in the playoffs did not engender confidence that his best days were not already behind him. But even if we know it's not the same as it was with Harden -- and that gravity appears to really be holding him back these days -- both he and the rest of the team seem to realize that maximizing his fit and play (and fitness) in his newly compromised physical state is still perhaps the best chance we have at being title contenders this season. What he does on this team cannot be replaced, and nobody's coming to help at this point anyway.
No. 3: Kate Bush, "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" (P.J. Tucker)
Admittedly I was inclined to give this slot to P.J. regardless of any lyrical fit, simply because I'm pretty sure he's the only player on the roster who was actually alive during the original chart run of "Running Up That Hill" back in 1985. Still, it is pretty remarkable that Daryl Morey was able to make a deal to get him to swap his place as our tormentor on last year's Miami Heat team for one in our own short corner this season -- as if he wants to know how it feels to be on the other side. Whether it was a deal with God or with the devil will I suppose be Dave Silver's call to make soon enough.
No. 4: Jack Harlow, "First Class" (Matisse Thybulle)
My least favorite song of 2022 goes to the Sixer who currently seems like the best idea on paper and feels the most unsatisfying to actually experience. Back in 2019, he was outside freely, but after three years of miserable offense in the regular season and crumpling like a plastic straw rapper under a couple water drops' worth of pressure in the postseason -- sandwiched this year around the extremely unadorable revelation that he had not and would not get properly vaccinated before the playoffs -- Process Trusters definitely have it out for Matisse. You hope this final year of his rookie contract is the year he figures out how to be competent enough on offense to not totally cancel out his (already over-inflated) defensive value, but throw up the L for any fans who actually expect him to do so.
No. 5: Future feat. Drake & Tems, "Wait For U" (Isaiah Joe)
As my patience wears Stephen King thinner with Matisse, I'm more than happy to spend a third season waiting for Isaiah Joe. The prospect of what he could give us is so tantalizing -- and he seems so very close to already being that guy, if just more of the shots in the regular season actually went in -- that I will absolutely scapegoat anyone and everything for his lack of production to date before I accept that he's just not gonna be a steady rotation guy in the pros. I'm ready to spend most of next year being That Guy on Twitter, insisting Doc Rivers give him an extended look whenever any one our wings aren't playing up to snuff and getting mad when it turns out I'm not that influential.
No. 6: Beyoncé, "Break My Soul" (Michael Rubin)
Gotta go outsssside the Sixers' roster to find the appropriate match for this quittin' time anthem, a surefire dancefloor filler at any of our former minority owner's (weekly? daily?) themed Hamptons parties for celebrities this summer. Honestly, not since Magic Johnson ran out on the Lakers so he could tweet more has an NBA exec left his post for a more noble reason; it seems for all the world like Rubin quit his official position with the Sixers so he could tamper more effectively on the team's behalf. So far, so good, though if Rubin keeps telling everybody he knows to come to the Sixers, we're gonna end up tied up in Dave Silver red tape from now until the Zach Lowe apocalypse.
No. 7: Harry Styles, "Late Night Talking" (De'Anthony Melton)
The crushingest song in this week's top 10 for the new guy we're currently most jazzed about. De'Anthony Melton seems like the absolute perfect role player to get too excited over: He's young, he's athletic, does a couple things obviously very well -- things that translate pretty well to Twitter highlight videos -- and everything else? Don't worry about it! We probably won't even really notice it until halfway through the season, when he does That Thing He Always Does for the 10th straight game and we wonder why no one ever warned us about it, and then in the playoffs when one bad cold streak leaves him right on the borderline of unplayable and we start to suspect there was a reason why a team that generally knows what they're doing made him available to us so cheap. For now, though, we're just happy that he's in our life and perpetually on our minds. It's a fun stage.
No. 8: Bad Bunny, "Me Porto Bonito" (Danuel House Jr.)
And the horniest song in this week's top 10 (translated title: "I'll Behave Myself") for the new guy who is still the top Google result for the phrase "unauthorized female guest." The Sixers certainly hope House behaves himself as their 8th or 9th man, but honestly, a little off-kilter, uneasy energy might not be the worst thing for a team who elected Dwight Howard as Secretary of Vibes only two seasons ago and got pretty much all their on-court toughness from the 1st and 3rd slots on their center depth chart last season. Never hurts to have a couple dudes who are more bebesota than bebecita.
No. 9: Post Malone feat. Doja Cat, "I Like You (A Happier Song)" (Tyrese Maxey)
It's always a happier song when Tyrese Maxey is involved. Our precious point guard has spent the summer of 2022 raking in those Hustle plaudits (and residuals!), bonding with James Harden, getting sonned by Sam Cassell (not the way you'd expect!) and working out at the gym so early and so often that he's probably crashing in Gardner Mishnew's prison bus most nights. Basically, everything we would want him to do, minus developing a lethal stepback jumper from three that he can shoot with confidence. (Ah shit, he's doing that too?) Like the not-actually-that-great Post/Doja song that finally crawled its way back to the top 10 this week, you know you should probably resist the allure of the Maxey Offseason Charm Offensive at least a little, but you're ultimately powerless every time it comes on the radio.
No. 10: Glass Animals, "Heat Waves" (Furkan Korkmaz)
And of course, the song that has inexplicably hung around the longest (80 weeks on the Hot 100! Ten away from setting the all-time record!) for the guy who has inexplicably hung around the Sixers the longest. True, he's only been here since 2017 -- Samuel Dalembert was a Sixer for at least five times that -- but post-Hinkie Sixers tenures are of course measured in dog years, and the fact that Korkmaz dates back to the Colangelo administration without ever actually locking down a consistent role on this team basically makes him the Udonis Haslem of The Process. Just have to hope that he's more heat wave than fake-out from deep in his sixth season of the bench for the Ballers, or that he at least can have one more signature moment worthy of that look that's perfectly un-sad before being relegated to the bench for the rest of the year.
