Dick Jerardi is a product of a Philly sports time gone by. Presumably cloaked in dust-covered garments from the floor of the Palestra and footed in shit-stained shoes from the stables of fearful fillies, Jerardi and his neck wattle represent the sort of simplistic, my-opinion-is-bigger-than-yours thinking of the local sports establishment. This act worked prior to 2002. 2005, even. It no longer works in 2016.

This week, Jerardi yet again railed against the Sixers – who are certainly fair game for railing against – but did so in the most unhinged and ludicrous manner possible:

There was much reaction to my recent “Fire Sam Hinkie’’ column, including 617 comments. And I also got many emails, the vast majority of in agreement. With time to reconsider, I have changed my mind. The Sixers president and general manager should not be fired. He should be made to stay and own the fraud he has perpetrated as it plays out over time and the rest of the populace catches on. Then, there should be a ceremony at City Hall when Mayor Kenney will announce Hinkie’s firing.

I bet when he was done writing that he sat back in his creaky chair, stared at his Dell Inspiron, which was presumably smoking from the ????????? it had just produced, and thought to himself: “Nailed it.”

The problem, of course, is that though there are very legitimate criticisms of the Sixers – Jerardi touched on one of them: their complete failure to address the human element of rebuilding pre-Jerry Colangelo – Dick chose just the strangest foundation for his anti-tank argument:

So the Sixers definitely have three picks [assuming Lakers keep theirs]: their own, subject to the whims of ping pong balls, the Heat’s (probably between15 and 20) and the Thunder’s (no better than 25). How exactly are those other two picks going to change the balance of power? How many stars do you get at that stage of the draft?

I am a Ben Simmons fan, but after him, there are no potential franchise changers. And let’s not get too carried away with Simmons. I heard he is the best prospect since LeBron. Did people forget Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Kevin Durant and Anthony Davis, among others?

The Warriors are the gold standard and they built through the draft. Why can’t the Sixers? Here is the difference.

Golden State’s three All Stars — Steph Curry (Davidson), Klay Thompson (Washington State) and Draymond Green (Michigan State) — played 347 college games and scored nearly 5,000 points among them.

The Sixers’ three key draftees — Nerlens Noel (Kentucky), Embiid (Kansas) and Okafor (Duke) — played 90 college games and scored a bit more than 1,000 points

Credit the Warriors for incredible drafts, getting Curry seventh in 2009, Thompson 11th and in 2011 and Green 35th in the 2012, but these players had resumes as players and people.

What the Vincent Heck?

Few things:

  1. I included that last paragraph just to show the hilarious typos following a one-sentence paragraph with no period. Good thing Philly.com fired its editors.
  2. What sort of logic-warp extrapolates a negative from reports that Simmons is the best prospect since LeBron, and then cites all the genuine stars he might actually be better than? Simmons might not turn out to be a star, but there’s nothing in Jerardi’s argument which makes that case. In fact, it might be the exact opposite.
  3. I’ve truly never heard anyone use college games-played and points-scored as a predictor of NBA success. By that logic, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony should be out of the league. And never mind the fact that Noel is a defensive player, and that all three of the Sixers’ youngsters mentioned here played for deep national powerhouses, unlike Curry and Thompson. Also never mind that Dick’s comparing the Sixers’ rebuild to one of the best NBA teams in a decade. Also never mind that Dario Saric is not even mentioned. Also never mind that if the Sixers land Simmons, he’d automatically shoot to the top of that list.

But that’s not all! There’s more. A Dick twofer! Because also on Thursday, Jerardi wrote the most pointless and vanilla sports column of all-time about his friend’s HIGHLY UNINTERESTING Super Bowl bet on the favored Panthers, who, in case you haven’t heard, lost to the Broncos:

The trouble with sports bets, as my friend knows way better than I do, is that you may be right with your evaluation and still lose because of events out of your control. Given how inept their offense was against a Broncos defense that was really good and gained confidence as the game went on, I am not sure the Panthers were going to win in any case. However, the non-reversal of that catch ruled incomplete (does anybody know what a catch is?) changed the entire flow of the game. Remember, the Broncos’ strip sack/touchdown came right after that ruling.

I felt badly for him because I know how much time and effort he put into his bets. He will get over it because looking back makes it only worse.

And it reinforced once again why I make all my bets at the race track, where, of course, nothing can ever go wrong.

That was it. That was the whole gist of the story: My friend made a bet on the Super Bowl, I thought he might win, but he didn’t and lost. Ending it with a line about horse racing – vintage Dick – was just the cherry on top.

H/T to (@Jt856) and reader Harry