I'm So Done With This Offseason (And It Hasn't Even Started Yet)

AU on screwing up the AM/PM settings on his Caring About the Sixers Again alarm clock.

Writer and occasional hyperbolist that I am, I was recently tempted to refer to this current Philadelphia 76ers offseason as the longest offseason ever. I knew that probably wasn't really true though -- not yet, anyway -- and that I've certainly felt that way about one, if not multiple Sixers summers before, probably to the point where I'd written about it. Sure enough: In summer 2019, that fateful offseason a half-decade ago of Tobias and Horf and J-Rich instead of Jimmy, I declared it to be the Longest Fucking Offseason Ever. 

I saw that coming, but what I didn't expect was when in that summer I published that article. I figured it was around this time five years ago, maybe in July or early August at the latest. Nope: September 13. Nearly three whole months deeper into the offseason than we currently are. 

Gulp. 

I am already doner than a Trump-ordered steak with this offseason, and it hasn't even really begun yet. I was so focused on how annoyed I was with all the rumors, the non-stories, the waiting that I forgot that we were supposed to still be in the easy part of the summer. This is still Kol Nidre, the night before Yom Kippur, where you can still taste the lingering hint of final-meal dinner on your tongue, still feel the waves of last-second hydration coursing through your body. Things don't really get bad until tomorrow, where an impossibly long day of atonement, fasting and nothingness awaits us. Why am I already feeling this dry-mouthed, empty-stomached and hopelessly weak of body and spirit? 

The early exit certainly didn't help. One of the things we apparently took for granted about at least making it to the second round five of the previous six postseasons was that it was an extra two weeks of having actual Sixers basketball to watch -- heartbreaking, soul-crushing, genital-kicking basketball perhaps, but real and true basketball nonetheless. Without it, we started the clock on the offseason earlier in the calendar than we have since we were ending our season with a starting lineup of T.J. McConnell, Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot, Alex Poythress, Justin Anderon and Richaun Holmes. An extra two weeks of half-hearted draft research and trade machine dithering, of flirting with Becoming a Brandon Ingram Guy just to feel something. Bad start.

The Celtics absolutely did not help either. Not that it's particularly easy as a Sixers fan to watch the ever rest of the postseason pretending to be a Normal Basketball Fan -- how can we be expected to enjoy a Wolves-Mavericks Western Conference Finals when we're haunted by the prospect of either Karl-Anthony Towns or Dante Exum potentially making the finals before Joel Embiid? -- but obviously, a playoffs in which the C's plow through the rest of the league with a 16-3 final record makes for a particularly tough hang. I just want to spend my Friday on Twitter soaking up the new Charli XCX and Lorde "Girl, So Confusing" remix memes, and assholes on my timeline insist on reminding me that a Celtics championship parade is a thing currently happening. Al Horford getting a ring. Jrue Holiday forgetting he ever was a Sixer. Jayson Tatum smiling through it all, unbelieving that this is his life. Kill me. 

But the real drag this year is probably the actual weight of expectation. Not only are we expected to be active this offseason, we actually need to be active -- hell, we don't even have a roster currently beyond the two main guys. We don't have the luxury of just tuning out this summer; there's too much work to be done. And yet, all there really is to do before the draft and free agency kicks off in earnest is to debate the same guys over and over until we find reasons to talk ourselves out of all of them, and soak up the available scraps of slop that invariably end up being more discouraging than encouraging about our ability to make the grand-scale improvements we need to make. Nothing has even happened yet -- barely anything has even been allowed to happen yet -- and we're already mad at Daryl Morey for fucking it all up, for dooming us with his four-year plan that all added up to diddly shit. Corrosive stuff all around. 

And the really annoying part is -- I actually started off this offseason feeling pretty good! Usually the Sixers' exits are so deeply and prolifically upsetting that I can't even stand the sight of the "7" and "6" keys next to each other on my computer keyboard until at least early June. But this year I found the Sixers' playoff performance (and their future prospects) heartening and nourishing enough that even with the early exit, I was ready to jump back in pretty much right away. Turns out, though, it's pretty hard to maintain that good feeling and positive momentum through seven weeks of wandering in the pre-offseason abyss. Now, I can barely even remember what that eagerness felt like. Now I kinda just hate everyone and everything again. 

I guess it's a good thing that we actually have some stuff coming up. The draft is on Wednesday and Thursday; free agency starts in earnest half a week later. Maybe they'll give us reason to feel encouraged, maybe they'll give us reason to feel like giving up, maybe they'll end up basically stalling for time. It'll be stuff, at the very least -- real stuff, actually happening stuff -- and maybe it'll lead to other stuff for another few weeks, long enough to get us through to Summer League. But all of that is still basically just the temporary respite of sleep in between Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur proper. And then we've got hours and hours of standing in an uncomfortable suit to look forward to while our heads keep getting lighter and our stomachs keep getting angrier. 

Only religion and 76ers basketball would ask us to keep suffering this regularly, this predictably, and only for them would we keep doing it. All I can say is that at the end of all this particular misery, Daryl better have one hell of a full meal ready for us.

---

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. 

Andrew's writing is brought to you by Kinetic Skateboarding! Not only the Ricky's approved skate shop, but the best place to get Chucks, Vans, any apparel. Use code "DAVESILVER" for 9.1% off your order.