Five years after Sam Hinkie’s departure, the Philadelphia 76ers are the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference, finishing with their best winning percentage since 2001. That’s when Allen Iverson took a rag tag group of role players to the Finals, stole a game off Kobe and Shaq, and carried the proverbial baton as far as he could.

It’s ironic in the sense that Hinkie is long gone, but his mentor now runs the operation, which is coached by a title-winning veteran and led on the floor by a MVP-caliber superstar. Originally an injured diamond in the knee-deep rough, Joel Embiid turned out to be Hinkie’s most prized acquisition, a guy who got healthy and became the key to turning around a perennially-disappointing squad that was stuck in purgatory.

So here they are, in 2021, with a wide open path in front of them. The Sixers will get home court advantage in their conference, and easily dispatch the eight seed before getting the Knicks or Hawks in round two. Milwaukee and Brooklyn will beat each other up in the quarterfinals, leaving Philly to avoid one of those squads en route to the Finals. It could not have worked out better.

In the coming days and weeks we’ll hear about the Sixers having a cakewalk to the conference finals, which they do, but Doc Rivers is trying to tune it all out.

“Don’t listen, you know?’ said Rivers after Sunday’s finale, when asked about postseason hype and noise. “We’ve done nothing. We had a great regular season. Everyone starts at 0-0 now. The West is wide open and the East is wide open, the way I look at it. Because of last year, with teams staying in the bubble longer, this was a huge accomplishment. But this is the first one, we can’t rest on this. We have to get ready. We’re gonna play a tough opponent in the first round. Don’t know who it’s gonna be, but they’ll be playoff tested already. They’ll have played up to three games already and we’ll have had a week off, so we need to be ready out of the box.”

That’s a good way to approach it, considering this team has had massive expectations for several years now. All you can do is tune it out and try to focus on yourself.

Hopefully fans can enjoy the ride and save the Negadelphia for later. This team needs your support, and if they fall short, we can discuss what went wrong ad nauseam in the summer. For now, try to have some fun and drink from a glass half full, because the the path to the NBA Finals very rarely goes through Philadelphia.

Random thoughts:

  1. Thank God the regular season is over. Too many games where guys were injured, or resting, or in the COVID protocol. There just wasn’t enough full-strength, meaningful basketball on a night-in, night-out basis, and it hurt the overall product.
  2. I realize that sounds disrespectful to a team that went out and handled their business more often than not. The Sixer strung together wins under difficult travel and pandemic circumstances, and should be commended for that. It’s not any less of an achievement, but it’s a different kind of achievement, and that should be noted.
  3. If you want to mark down one specific reason why the Sixers were able to lock up the #1 seed, I’d point to the road trips where they won 4 of 6, 3 of 4, and 3 of 3. They were 20-16 on the road after going 12-26 a year ago. Total turnaround in that department.
  4. There’s a 0% chance the Sixers go out in the second round. They finished 5-1 against New York and Atlanta this year. If they lose to the Hawks or Knicks with homecourt advantage I’ll put on a dunce cap and sit outside of the Aramingo Avenue Wawa with a sign that says “I jinxed it.”
  5. This is Joel Embiid’s best entry into the playoffs, ever. In 2018, he had a broken face. In 2019, he was sick in round two. In 2020, he played in the bubble with no Ben Simmons and no shooters. The figurative plane landed smoothly.
  6. Doc Rivers’ recent history is a legitimate concern. That seems outrageous when you think about the fact that he’s in the mix for Coach of the Year, but his Clippers teams were massive postseason disappointments, and he’s going to have to turn it up a notch in May and address some of the things he repeatedly told the media he wasn’t worried about during the regular season.
  7. This bench is waaaay better than the 2019 bench. In the Toronto series, Brett Brown was down to an eight-man rotation, with Mike Scott, James Ennis, and Greg Monroe off the pine. This year, Rivers can go nine deep with George Hill, Matisse Thybulle, Dwight Howard, and Shake Milton. I don’t think we’ll see Furkan Korkmaz and Tyrese Maxey.
  8. Behind Embiid, Tobias Harris is the most important player for the playoffs. They need his scoring to ease the burden on Simmons/Curry/Green, who aren’t going to consistently go for 15+ a night.
  9. The basketball community at large deserves full strength Sixers vs. full strength Nets in the ECF. After sitting through a lot of shit games this year, we’re owed Embiid/Simmons/Harris vs. Irving/Durant/Harden. It should be a brilliant series of high-IQ basketball.
  10. If you’re scared of the Washington Wizards, get a dog.
  11. This might be a horrendous take, but maybe we should leave fan capacity around 25% for the playoffs. They’ve played well in these lesser atmospheres this season and something in the back of my head is telling me, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.“
  12. Along those lines, there likely will be no media access throughout the playoffs. It will probably continue as Zoom sessions only. As long as the mask mandate remains in effect, I can’t imagine reporters will be allowed to do in-person press conferences or locker room interviews. This might be a good thing, depending on how you view the local and national scribes.
  13. Playoff weaknesses? They gotta get that free throw percentage up (it’s about 77% right now). And the discrepancy between three point shooting and attempts is still there. They only shoot 30 per game, which is 26th in the league, but they hit at 37.4%, which is tied for 10th. The Sixers also have to tighten up in transition, because they finished the regular season as the second-worst club in allowing fast break points.
  14. Seth Curry had a really encouraging May. He shot the shit out of the ball, hitting 24 of 39 threes. That’s 61.5%. That’s not sustainable in the playoffs, but the good thing was that he looked much more assertive doing it.
  15. There is a slight disadvantage in having to wait to find out your round one opponent, but the practice and rest time is needed. They basically had no practices this year. There just weren’t enough off days due to the crunched schedule.
  16. Defensively, they have enough bodies to deal with Brooklyn or any other squad. It’s just a matter of how they deploy Simmons, Thybulle, Hill, Green, and Harris. I get the sense that fans seem really worried about the Nets, but I think they match up with them just fine. Brooklyn has absolutely nobody to guard Joel Embiid.
  17. The Bucks have an insane path to the Finals. They are going to have to beat Miami, Brooklyn, and then likely Philadelphia.
  18. It’s Finals or bust. Anything less is a disappointment. That seems really steep, but that’s where we are. The nature of the rebuild and the past 20 years of Sixers basketball has led us to this point.

That’s all I’ve got for now.

Admittedly, it was a really funky regular season. So many games were lopsided, with guys absent for a variety of reasons. There was limited media access and I think that resulted in less news in the public sphere. But I think you’re going to see the excitement start to ramp up significantly, now that the games begin to matter and the Eagles draft and minicamp is in the rear-view mirror. No Flyers, either. It’s just the Sixers, Phillies, and Union right now, and the basketball team is going to get the full spotlight in May and June.

Finally, if you wanna feel good about their chances, here’s a guy who looks like he’s about to go on a postseason rampage:

(photo from the NBC Sports Philly broadcast)