Greatness often exists alone. The greatest teams and players in sports history transcend the quotidian and enter a realm of the superhuman. Conversely, absolutely dismal teams and players often slip quietly into the background and enter oblivion. In today’s NBA, the Golden State Warriors, possibly one of the greatest teams of all time, and the Philadelphia 76ers are shattering everything we thought we knew about greatness and, in the case of the 76ers, mediocrity.
Leading into the 2015-16 season everyone that paid attention to basketball knew that the Warriors would be good and the 76ers would be bottom-dwellers. The Warriors were the defending champions and the 76ers had set the NBA record the previous year by losing 28 straight games. However, nobody expected the teams to get off to the kind of starts that they did. The Warriors are still riding an all-time best 20-game win streak and the 76ers (1-19), until Tuesday night, were in the midst of the worst-ever start to an NBA season. On one hand it seems that the two teams could not be more astronomically distant. However, the serendipity of the timing of these two streaks is too overwhelming to ignore. It is fascinating that such unquestionable greatness is co-existing alongside a historically dismal season for the 76ers. For a rare moment in sports, greatness does not stand alone, it shines all the brighter alongside the 76ers’ mediocrity
The modern sports fan is quick to relish in the present moment. When looking at the 76ers and the Warriors, a little bit of history illuminates the past and can give us a better idea of what may lay ahead for these two intertwined teams. Not so long ago, the Warriors were wallowing in the cellar of the NBA. From 2008 to 2012, the Warriors never eclipsed 36 wins and were an afterthought in contender conversations. In 2009, general manager Larry Riley selected Stephen Curry with the seventh overall pick in the draft. An undersized guard from a mid-major hardly seemed to be the answer to the Warrior’s woes. As it turned out, this was the first move in a series of savvy front-office decisions that have placed the Warriors in the history books of the NBA. Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, and Andre Iguodala joined the team over the course of the next three seasons. Slowly, the Warriors became a championship contender. Their progress was slow, but they gained playoff experience and eventually learned what it took to become the best in the world.
The stars need to align to some extent for an NBA team to make a championship run. Certainly there was a healthy dose of luck involved in the Warriors’ most recent championship. Their fiery start to the 2015-16 season speaks to a rock-solid core of scorers and a team that has bought into a shared mission. The 76ers this season have been horrible and have a long way to go before they’re putting up Warriors-esque numbers, but Philadelphia isn’t quite as different from the Warriors as one might guess.
The argument for a resurgence in Philadelphia hinges on the relative youth of the team and an intelligent front office. The 76ers have been building their team through the draft each of the past two years and are now the youngest team in the NBA. The average age of Brett Brown’s team is 23.3. A bevy of young talent will have the chance to mature over the course of the next few years. Jahlil Okafor, Nerlens Noel, and Joel Embiid make up the core of an NBA contender. There is some serious maturing that needs to occur, specifically with Okafor. Okafor’s name has been all over headlines this past week after videos surfaced of the rookie online fighting outside of a Philadelphia nightclub. The best teams in the NBA make headlines for their play and stay out of trouble. Okafor will hopefully learn the way of the understated superstar and become the force of nature that he once was during his Duke days.
Since Sixers owner Josh Harris bought the team in 2011, the organization has gone through three different general managers. It seems that Philadelphia has found its man in Sam Hinkie. Hinkie, a graduate of Stanford Business School, has the makings of a revolutionary front office presence. In 2014, ESPN named Hinkie’s Sixers as the sports team that has most embraced analytics. Hinkie and the Sixer’s front office take an analytical approach and appear to be building for the long-term. Hinkie came under fire late last season when it appeared that the Sixers were tanking hard and purposefully losing games in order to get a higher pick in the draft. The Sixers ended up with the third pick and selected Jahlil Okafor.
It’s too early to make any real judgments about Hinkie’s approach to managing the Sixers. In the next few years it will become apparent whether or not HInkle has made the right moves for the future of the franchise. Despite the dismal record of the Sixers thus far, a young core of talent bodes well for the coming years.
The Warriors will march on into the history books. The Sixers will most likely end the season deep in the cellar of the NBA. It’s a tough time to be a Sixers fan, but the Warriors rise to dominance could certainly be a blueprint for the Sixers to follow. More than 2,500 miles away from Oakland, Sam Hinkle is going about building a team that will one day make headlines for winning games, not losing 18 or 26 in a row.