Rooting for Losses Again Stinks
Back to this shit. Blugh.
In the timeless words of the Gallagher Brothers: There we were, now here we are. Maybe you were here all along; I obviously wasn't. For the first two months of 2025, I still really wanted the Sixers to get their shit together, to push for the 10 seed -- possibly the nine seed? Is that the light of the eight seed through yonder window breaks? -- and believed that them doing so would be a legitimately worthwhile experience, both for them and for us. Even as injuries, losses and excuses mounted, as everyone on the court looked increasingly Straight Up Not Having a Good Time, as Nick Nurse looked like that little head of his might just pop at any moment, I hoped they'd turn it around -- at least enough to pass the similarly execrable Bulls and Hawks, at least enough to give themselves a chance at squeezing into the postseason and Miami Heating their way into annoying overdue relevance from there.
But yeah, no longer. Between the team suffering increasingly humiliating losses to the Celtics, Nets and Bulls, the plug being pulled on Joel Embiid's season -- maybe his next season too, maybe his entire career -- and now both Paul George and Tyrese Maxey missing fingers, I've lost the will to actively root for W's. I can squint like George Costanza spotting raccoons on the highway but I can no longer see any version of this team that even ends up being a fun late-season spoiler -- only one desperately calling to be put out of its misery. I give up. I can't really even hope for spite Ws at this point in good faith. Mike wins. It's time to root for losses.
And man, I forgot just how wack actually doing this shit is.
I officially passed over to the other side midway through Monday night's game against the Blazers. Embiid and George were out, and Maxey was spending yet another game on offense practicing his impression of rookie year Jaden Springer -- and yet the team was up five at the half, thanks to an absurd double-double outburst from Andre Drummond that included a three-pointer, a near-poster dunk and three (!!) completed first-quarter alley-oops. I love a truly random Sixers role player outburst game as much as anyone, but coming hot on the heels of The Quentin Grimes Game, this was starting to stretch credibility a little bit. Around the third quarter, I realized I didn't actually care if the Sixers were able to maintain their unlikely lead. When the Blazers wrested control of the game before quarter's end -- by which point Maxey had also exited with a back contusion -- it was more like, finally.
And I hated it! I hated having nothing left to hold onto with this team, no more reason to want good things for them on the basketball court, no hope left that there was anything remaining for them to even try to build towards. I hated how as the Blazers were taking over, I was barely even paying attention, somehow finding refreshing my Bluesky feed to be a less dispiriting experience. I hated how Tyrese had been playing so bad and tanking his stats so much that I was practically relieved when he left the game with injury. I hated not having any reason remaining to give a shit.
I know that pivoting to tanking should be an easier transition for me to make. After all, we rooted for losses for three years straight, to have to do so for a mere third of a season should probably leave us doing our best Bane impressions at the unchallenging degree of difficulty. But those good old days weren't always good, either. We had some fun in those first two seasons, sure -- when losing was novel and we at least had MCW and Nerlens to latch onto as ostensibly high-level prospects to see us through the darkness -- but this feels more like 2015-16, when Jahlil Okafor pretty quickly demonstrated himself a bust, the rest of the team was absolutely flailing, we could barely win enough in the second half of the season to avoid making the worst NBA history imaginable, and with Embiid's future in long-term jeopardy, it was tough to see any light at the end of the tunnel. It feels like more than just a lost season, it feels like we're just lost, straight up. That's tougher to get through when there's still 20-plus games to go.
The thing that always gets lost in the discussion about whether it's time to call a TOD on the Sixers season with this much of the regular season still to get through is that as a longtime fan, it really leaves a hole in your life to not have this team to watch. Even at their bummeriest, I like having the Sixers to look forward to watching during the work week. Maybe some of you out there are a little better-adjusted than I am when it comes to finding a backup NBA team to root for -- or maybe, y'know, just better-adjusted in general -- but at this point in my fandom, when the Sixers are this depressing, the entire league is a bummer. I still have hours to fill while I'm listening to music and looking to have something on TV I can watch on mute to keep my attention. To not have games or a team to care about, especially when it's still too early to really pivot to Phillies Mode, leaves my life feeling a little incomplete.
Of course, if there's a silver lining to all this, I guess it's that March Madness is starting to heat up, and it's about time to get fully invested in Prospect Watch. Time to start setting the DV-R for whatever nationally televised Rutgers games remain, to develop some strong opinions about VJ Edgecombe and Derik Queen, to get kinda dirty with the Cooper Flagg fantasies. It's something, I guess, and it should help us get through the next month or so. But personally, I'd much rather have a Sixers team with even the slightest sliver of hope to root to. I'd rather be a regular-season sicko until the bitter end. I'm certainly not looking forward to spending the last quarter of the season being like Mike.
Andrew Unterberger 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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THOSE WERE MAILBOXES YOU IDIOT I DIDN'T HAVE THE HEART TO TELL YOU