Larry Mendte once came close to toppling Action News at 11 p.m.

The year was something like 2006, and he and fellow anchor Alycia Lane were running a pretty strong effort at CBS 3, back before smart phones and social media had begun to chip away at local news.

Then Lane punched a New York City cop and Mendte decided to hack into her emails and spread information to gossip rags. Both were fired by Channel 3, and the rest, they say, is history.

Mendte has done more broadcasting since coming off six-months of house confinement years ago, but it was strange to see his name attached to a sports article published by Fansided this afternoon, an article titled “The Philadelphia 76ers can’t beat the best teams in the NBA.“

Writes Mendte:

The Philadelphia 76ers were blown out by the Denver Nuggets 126 -110 on Saturday. The Nuggets won every quarter and dominated the Sixers.

Over the course of an 82-game season, a loss to a good team on the road is nothing to lose sleep over. It happens to the best of teams. But when it happens over and over again, when it becomes a trend, it’s something to pay attention to.

Probably worth noting that Joel Embiid, Jimmy Butler, and Wilson Chandler didn’t play.

Anyway, carrying on, after the jump:

The 76ers have no problem beating the teams currently under .500 in the NBA. They’re 21-6 for a winning percentage of .778 against those teams. That shouldn’t be a shock. That’s the way it is supposed to happen, the good teams beat the bad teams.

But against teams that play at or above .500, the 76ers are a paltry 11-12 for a winning percentage of .478. This is a real concern, because the teams playing over .500 are the teams they’ll have to face in the playoffs. If they can’t beat the best teams now, how can they beat them in March and April?

It’s a reasonable point and something we’ve talked about. The Sixers failed early season tests in Toronto, Boston, and Milwaukee. They beat Indy twice on the road and had good wins at the Clippers and Jazz.

When we venture out West, the news gets even worse. The 76ers are 0-3 against teams in the Western Conference with a winning percentage over .600, and they haven’t even played the Golden State Warriors yet. Philadelphia has lost to the Denver Nuggets, the Portland Trail Blazers and the Oklahoma Thunder. The average score in those three games is 126-108.

Embiid didn’t play against the Nuggets or the Trail Blazers.

I’m sure some of you are saying, “Well, of course they are going to do worse against the good teams and the elite teams.” Yes, that’s true. But to win an NBA championship, you have to be able to beat the elite teams.

Well yeah, of course.

Anyway, time’s yours.