In 2014, the second year of "the Process" as it is known, I was at opening day for the Sixers game versus the Heat. During the year prior, the Sixers became a national, and in some cases local, pariah for the drastic rebuild that Sam Hinkie began during the 2013 NBA Draft when he traded Jrue Holiday for an injured Nerlens Noel and a 2014 1st round pick. It was the first time in sports history that a team openly invited losing in the short term with their eyes set on long term success and multiple championships. All of the arguing aside about the merits of such a process, one thing every basketball fan could agree to was that watching the Sixers was down right god awful.
I had the fortune of seeing a lot of this cringeworthy basketball because my college roommate hitched his wagon to "the Process" early, and bought season tickets for the 2014 season. The off-season headlines were dominated by the choice to select another talented yet injured big, Joel Embiid out of Kansas, and the long awaited debut of Nerlens Noel. There was a lot of excitement going into that Heat game around finally unveiling Nerlens to the world, and Process fans everywhere were hoping to see improvement. While it was exciting, Nerlens disappointed and the team as whole turned in a garbage performance that began their 18-64 record that year. There was never as much as a low murmur in the stadium, and the top bowl was never even close to filling during that game and mostly every game after that.
Flash forward to 2016 and countless garbage Sixers games later, Wednesday's home opener had a similar storyline that Heat game had. Embiid was making his long awaited debut, and the 1st overall pick Simmons was in street clothes as the Sixers were struck by the rookie season injury bug once again. I was in attendance this year as well, but this opener was different. The excitement around Embiid is infinitely greater than Nerlens, and the moment I stepped out of AT&T station you could feel a palpable energy that has been lost over the past four years. And that energy carried throughout. Embiid impressed, dropping 20 points, grabbing 7 boards, and making Steven Adams look like a little bitch the entire night. But the biggest thing I took away from the night besides Embiid being a franchise cornerstone was that the fans are finally in it again. I haven't seen a crowd like that since the 2010 playoffs. Everyone was fired up at being able to watch actual basketball played by the home team. I thought the building was going to burn to the ground if Embiid hit that three just before the halftime buzzer. The biggest difference with this team was they played fundamentally sound basketball. Now with players like Sergio Rodriguez and Dario Saric, the team seems to understand spacing and how to run an offense better than they have in Brett Brown's tenure. And Ben Simmons hasn't even played yet. It was only the first game, and I'm sure there will be some bad basketball this year, but for the first time in 4 years it looks like Sixers fans have something worth paying attention to.
Non Embiid related observations:
It'll be interesting to see Jahlil Okafor in action once the rust wears off from his injury, but aside from a few nice post moves he looked pretty awful. Needs to step it up on defense, and learn how to feel the pressure coming from double teams and kick it out.
Where the hell did the Sauce come from?? If the Sixers can get that play consistently from Stauskas he'll be worth keeping around.
Dario Saric plays really hard, and for the most part is already a polished NBA player as far as skill and fundamentals are concerned. But the dude needs to get his conditioning down. He looked slow at times, and I think his lack of NBA conditioning played into some dumb mistakes he made down the stretch. But the makings of a great player are there once he gets acclimated with the speed
Sixers were fools for not letting Sevyn perform the anthem. I'll leave it at that. You wanna fight about it hit me up on Twitter.
Desiigner got booed out of the stadium following his performance. Can't hate the dudes energy and happiness, but man no one wants to watch anyone lip sync Panda. Peep the video below if you dare.