Understanding the euphoria of a Philadelphia 76ers fan
It has been a banner year in 2018 for Philadelphia sports, no matter how low the bar might have been to achieve such an accomplishment in the City of Brotherly Love given its championship futility. In February, the Philadelphia Eagles captured their first Super Bowl title in franchise history, followed by the Villanova Wildcats capturing their second NCAA men’s basketball championship in three years.
After six straight losing seasons without a playoff appearance, the Philadelphia Phillies appear to have turned a corner in their rebuild as they are off to a strong start this season. And the Philadelphia Flyers made it back to the Stanley Cup Playoffs this year after missing out in 2017.
But now, Philly has its championship hopes set on another team in 2018: its beloved 76ers.
Like its fellow pro sports teams in the city, the Sixers have not been historically associated with winning. Only the Flyers have a longer championship drought, as the Broad Street Bullies have not hoisted the Cup since 1975. The Phillies snapped their 28-year World Series title drought in 2008, while the Eagles finally removed itself from the infamous list of NFL teams with no rings earlier this year.
For many basketball fans, it is common to mistake 76ers fans’ excitement over their team for cockiness. Given how difficult life has been for 76ers fans over the last five years, it is an elation from their fanbase that the Sixers are relevant once again in the NBA.
Philadelphia has always been a basketball city. The Big 5 is the city’s unofficial grouping of college basketball schools, which includes La Salle, Penn, St. Joseph’s, Temple, and the aforementioned Villanova. If you want to include Drexel in the party, then the schools are often referred to as the City 6.
It is a city with a rich history of great players, iconic programs, and legendary coaches, very similar to that of other cities in the Northeast. That love and passion for basketball in the city extends to the pro level with the 76ers, who have often times found themselves overlooked in the Northeast when compared to the likes of the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks.
The Sixers have won two NBA titles in franchise history*. The first championship came in 1967 when the Sixers won 68 games during the regular season and finally broke through during an era of basketball when the Celtics reigned supreme. The 76ers snapped the Celtics’ run of eight straight championships in the conference finals and defeated the Golden State Warriors in the Finals to capture the city’s first NBA title. That Sixers team consisted of a Hall of Fame head coach in Alex Hannum, and three Hall of Fame players in Wilt Chamberlain, Billy Cunningham, and Hal Greer.
The Sixers returned to the top of the basketball world in 1983 by winning 65 games in the regular season and going 12–1 in the playoffs. After losing in the Finals two of the previous three years (1980, 1982) to the Los Angeles Lakers, it was third time’s a charm for Philadelphia in 1983 when it swept Los Angeles 4–0. With the aforementioned Cunningham now coaching, the Sixers featured another impressive trio of Hall of Famers in Julius “Dr. J” Erving, Moses Malone, and Mo Cheeks on its second championship squad.
Between their titles in 1967 and 1983, the Sixers made 11 playoff appearances and three trips to the Finals. Along with the two appearances in the Finals against L.A. in 1980 and 1982, the Sixers lost in the Finals in 1977 to the Portland Trail Blazers.
But after 1983 and having made five Finals appearances in 16 years, the Sixers would not make it back to the Finals for another 18 years. Between 1983 and 2001, Philly would make nine playoff appearances but would make it to the conference finals only once in 1985 before losing to Boston.
The Sixers’ recent playoff woes appeared to be over in 2001 when Philly made the NBA Finals behind Hall of Famers Allen Iverson and Dikembe Mutombo. Coached by Hall of Famer Larry Brown, the 76ers captured 56 wins in the regular season and pushed its way through a deep Eastern Conference to face off against the defending champion Lakers in the Finals.
The Lakers entered the Finals undefeated in the playoffs at 11–0, and would ultimately end up being too much for Philadelphia to stop. The Lakers sent the Sixers packing in five games, but Philly was able to hand L.A. its only loss in the 2001 playoffs. Despite losing in the Finals, the 2001 Sixers have gone down as an icon after Iverson’s disgusting step over of Lakers guard Tyronn Lue after hitting a jump shot late in Game 1.
Since 2001, life has not been very pretty for the 76ers and their fans. From 2001–2017, Philly made six playoff appearances but only got out of the first round twice. And even one of their playoff series wins has an asterisk on it, as the Sixers likely do not advance past the Chicago Bulls in 2012 if Derrick Rose does not get hurt in the series. The other playoff series win from that time period for the 76ers came in 2003 when they got past the Charlotte Hornets in the first round.
All six of those playoff appearances occurred prior to the 2012–2013 season, when the 76ers officially began the most infamous rebuild in professional sports history by bringing the word “tanking” into the everyday vernacular of sports fans.
Led by new general manager Sam Hinkie and head coach Brett Brown, “Trust the Process” became the new motto that Sixers fans came to embody and adore over the next five years. The Sixers began unloading veteran players and bringing on prospects who probably belonged in the G League rather than the NBA. It was the goal of the franchise to accumulate as many draft picks as possible and finish the season with as few wins as possible to improve their chances of landing a high first round pick in the following draft.
From 2013–2017, the Sixers went 109–301. The lowest mark would come in 2016 when the 76ers won only 10 games and finished with the worst record in the NBA. But the Sixers’ poor regular season performances paid off when it came to the draft. Some teams get high draft picks, and they still do not draft well. But other teams make great selections when given that same opportunity.
That’s exactly what the Sixers did. Players like Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, Dario Saric, and Markelle Fultz are some of the notable players selected by Philadelphia over the last five years. And it all led to what is happening now in 2018.
Having won 52 games and reached the playoffs for the first time since 2012, the Sixers are looking for their first trip to the Eastern Conference Finals and NBA Finals since Iverson’s MVP season in 2001. And, without question, this is the Sixers’ best team since 2001.
While Hinkie did not survive in his role as general manager to see the masterpiece that has unfolded in 2018, Brett Brown has been able to benefit from the fruits of their labor finally coming to fruition. While Brown has done an outstanding job guiding this team throughout the rebuilding phase and into the playoffs, much credit is owed to president of basketball operations Bryan Colangelo and the new front office in Philly for sticking with Brown to continue coaching and developing this team.
This 76ers team has an outstanding chance of winning the East, a statement one could not have imagined making at the start of this season. Yes, part of the reason is that there is no dominant team in the conference this year.
But it is actually because the Sixers are just really darn good. Philadelphia has been a top 10 defensive and offensive team for most of the season, and that balance has allowed the 76ers to win games in a multitude of ways this year. What the Sixers have is a nice mix of just about everything, and not being a one-dimensional team is key to hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy in June.
The 76ers have veterans with playoff experience (Marco Bellinelli, Ersan Ilyasova, Amir Johnson, JJ Redick), young role players who continue to improve (Robert Covington, Fultz, T.J. McConnell, Dario Saric), and two franchise-altering and perennial All-Stars who could find themselves in MVP conversations someday (Embiid, Simmons).
With two superstars who have drawn comparisons to LeBron James (Simmons) and Hakeem Olajuwon (Embiid), the Sixers are in business for the next decade.
So if you see a Sixers fan and they seem pretty arrogant about their team, leave them alone. They just want their bite at the apple of what has been a renaissance this year in Philadelphia sports. 76ers fans have been waiting for a very long time to have a winning basketball team in Philadelphia, and they certainly deserve it after suffering through so much losing.
*The Syracuse Nationals, who eventually moved to Philadelphia, won an NBA title in 1955 and it is credited to the 76ers.
