The 76ers move forward with a new process
The Philadelphia 76ers have won eight consecutive games. Their 8-1 start is their best start since the 2000-01 season, when they started 9-0 and ended up playing in the NBA Finals. At that time, in their ranks was a revolutionary player, an icon of the rebellion: Allen Iverson.
Nick Nurse has opted for Philadelphia with rules to follow. He is building habits and a day to day life that he has everything to evolve in culture. The team is more than any individuality and that is why everything works fluidly. A structure that moves like a living organism, in a synergistic and harmonious way, in which each offensive or defensive action has an intrinsic logic. Today, the Sixers have the NBA’s fifth-best defense (104.8 points per hundred possessions) and the third-best offense (117.2 points per hundred possessions).
To achieve this, they had a stroke of fortune in time. They removed a heavy bag of sand so they could take off properly. James Harden, negative leader par excellence capable of destroying absolutely everything to achieve his own temporary and ephemeral comfort (read Rockets, Nets), went out to publicly shoot Daryl Morey, one of his sports fathers who sheltered him every time he he could. . Selfish, out of character and more capricious than rebellious, he forced a transfer that eventually occurred. And it ended up being, once again, a shot to the heart of his own ego.
“I am the system,” Harden said at a press conference upon his arrival to the Clippers. Today the ‘other’ Los Angeles team has a record of 0-4 since the arrival of La Barba and they are beginning to be the laughing stock of the NBA. On Sunday they lost 28 points with Harden on the court against the Grizzlies, the contender with the worst start to the current season. This invites us to think that the system that Harden defends is obsolete, contaminated and serves no one but himself. Things are not how they want them to be: they are how they are.
That said, Philadelphia took the bad apple out of the drawer (it had already done so a while ago with Ben Simmons) and began to take off to seriously discuss the East with the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks. With Harden thousands of miles away, Tyrese Maxey took his game into the stratosphere. We all knew that he was a good player, but today we can see that he is much more than that. His takeoff is similar to that of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander when he left the Clippers for the Thunder in the trade that featured Paul George as the breakout star.
That Maxey is in the Sixers today is also a matter of fate, the Sixers chose him 21st in the 2020 Draft, but that pick belonged to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Sixers acquired that pick in 2016, then parted with it and got it back in the deal that sent Markelle Fultz to the Orlando Magic. The strange thing was this: Philadelphia would receive that pick only if it fell 21st or later; otherwise, the Thunder would send two second-rounders. And here we are.
Maxey scored 50 points on Sunday afternoon, confirming all the suspicions placed on him. He is the second youngest player in franchise history to score 50 points in a game, only behind Iverson who achieved it in 1997, at the age of 21. Tyrese’s scoring increase is absurd: he averages 28.6 points per appearance, which is an increase. +8.3 compared to last season (20.3). His numbers from last week are strong arguments for his growth: 31.5 points, 5.8 rebounds, 8.0 assists per game, 52.1% from the field, 39.5% from the arc and 92.9% from the free throw line.
When we say that the Sixers perform above names, we cannot fail to mention Kelly Oubre Jr., who is having a great start to the season, who was hit by a car on Saturday near his home and will be out for a while considerable. . due to a rib fracture and blows to a leg and waist. When a team is good and does its job well, it is formed based on the things that happen to fill those gaps.
It’s curious, because we have reached the ninth paragraph of this writing and only now will we say the magic word of the Sixers: Joel Embiid. The Cameroonian center, reigning NBA MVP, did not drop his performance one centimeter. He averages 32.4 points, 11.7 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game. It’s okay to say it, because many times he raises one player and lowers another. It hasn’t happened here: they all go up together. Last year, Philadelphia had two stars: Harden on one side and Embiid on the other. A constant challenge on the field to see which of the two was the owner of the team. Unnecessary and exhausting. The goal for 2023-24 is not to have one and the other, but for two to work together. Improve the pick and roll game, find better spaces for Embiid, Maxey understands the timing of the game better. He understands this growth as a process that takes time. A leadership duo and a support team. Something similar to what Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokic and the structure that surrounds them created in the Denver Nuggets to be champions.
Robert Covington, Nicolas Batum and Tobias Harris also see this as a spring. Not to mention the aforementioned Kelly Oubre Jr. We detect these signs in body expression, in the satisfaction of doing the little things, in the tranquility that only comes from adding wins while being better than the rival on duty. They are the players, but also the coaching staff and the leadership.
Morey, deep inside him, smiles. Because he learned something new, and we’re not talking about the disappointment of the dagger stuck in the back by Harden. It’s something else. The man who wanted to make the Rockets a fantasy team, who thought they could win just by looking at the numbers and the scoresheets, is beginning to understand something fundamental in life: wins and losses are about people. With moods. Happiness, to achieve results, is important. Emotional intelligence makes everything else, if it is there, emerge as an overwhelming force.
The Sixers, who just a couple of months ago were a big unknown, today are a certainty.
They have decided to take the reins of their own destiny. And that, sooner or later, brings results.
