One of the things about keeping the Sixers at arms’ length this year, and justifiably so, is that few people seem to realize and/or care that they had one of their best regular season campaigns since 2000-2001. That’s when Allen Iverson led a rag-tag group of dudes to the Finals and even a took a game off prime Kobe and Shaq before the gentlemen’s sweep took place.

The Sixers’ backups won a pair of games over the weekend, beating Atlanta in OT on Friday, then dispatching the Nets in Brooklyn on Sunday afternoon. That pushed New Philadelphia to a 54-28 record and more wins than any of Brett Brown or Doc Rivers’ recent teams.

The main quirk here is the COVID-shortened 2020-2021 season, when the Sixers won 49 games but only played 72, so if you go by win percentage instead of 82-game record, these are the best five seasons in team history going back three decades:

  • 2000-2001: 56 wins, 26 losses (.683 win percentage)
  • 2020-2021: 49 wins, 23 losses (.681 win percentage)
  • 2022-2023: 54 wins, 28 losses (.659 win percentage)
  • 2017-2018: 52 wins, 30 losses (.634 win percentage)
  • tie – 2018/19 and 2021/22: 51 wins, 31 losses (.622 win percentage)

Consider the fact that the Sixers finished this regular season with Joel Embiid as the NBA scoring champion and MVP frontrunner. They eclipsed 53 wins for only the second time since Dr. J was still playing. James Harden lead the league with 10.7 assists per game and at 38.7% and 83.5%, they were the #1 three point shooting team and #1 free throw shooting team, respectively. Even posting those numbers offensively, they still finished with a top-eight defensive rating as well, and claimed the league’s third-best record. If they were playing in the weaker west, they’d be the #1 seed out there.


Keep in mind, this team was largely “meh” early on. They were 12-12 on December 5th and then went 42-16 the rest of the way, which really is incredible. That includes two eight-game win streaks, a seven-game win streak, and a February-to-March stretch in which they won 14 of 17.

None of this matters now because Sixers fans and Philly casuals are focused only on the team getting out of the second round for the first time since 2001. But if they do succeed in that, it will perhaps unlock some of the things I mentioned above, and make those meaningful and relevant, because right now people will call it Fool’s Gold. They’ve seen this movie before, and the denouement needs to change to validate what came before.