TORONTO — It’s easy to have pity on the Philadelphia 76ers. The NBA’s most determined tank job rolled into the Air Canada Centre and did the usual: a vague impression of what an NBA team looks like — imagine a child’s drawing of their house in crayon being passed off as an architect’s blueprint — before losing again.
In this case it was 96-76 to the Toronto Raptors, who can only be congratulated for not falling prey to the league’s biggest yawning trap. The win improved Toronto to 16-9, which puts them on pace for 52 wins. If they can sustain that pace — not crazy given they’ve reached that mark despite a road-heavy early schedule and lengthy injuries to starters Jonas Valancuinas and DeMarre Carroll — it means setting a franchise record for wins for the third straight season. Any success at all in the playoffs would mean this is inarguably the most successful era in Raptors history.
With Philadelphia in town, it’s worth remembering how close the Raptors came to venturing down the same uncertain path towards progress that the 76ers are on, with no light yet at the end of their deep, dark tunnel.
It was just two years ago that Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri had a deal that would have sent Kyle Lowry to the New York Knicks for a future first-round pick. With the team having already shed Rudy Gay’s contract, the plan was to tank for Andrew Wiggins, who was taken No. 1 overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers before being traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The Raptors, in retrospect, got lucky. The Lowry trade was scuttled by Knicks owner James Dolan and Toronto, led by Lowry, surged to a franchise-record 48-win season before losing in seven games in the first round of the playoffs to the Brooklyn Nets. Last season, Lowry was an all-star and the Raptors won 49 games, another record season marred only by a first-round sweep at the hands of the Washington Wizards. This season Lowry is garnering some MVP talk in the non-Stephen Curry category and a deeper, more resilient-seeming Raptors team looks like they could win a playoff round or more.
Philadelphia? They’re like the ghost of the Raptors’ Christmas past. A horror story of what could have been. Having tanked deeper and harder than any team in NBA history, the strain is beginning to show. Rookie Jahill Okafor has been a TMZ regular for bar brawls and speeding tickets.
Just last week the club announced that former Phoenix Suns owner and president Jerry Colangelo would join the franchise as chairman of basketball operations. It’s rumoured that former Suns head coach Mike D’Antoni will join Philadelphia as an associate head coach shortly. It’s all widely viewed as a repudiation of president and general manager Sam Hinkie’s "process" — which has basically been to lose as many games as possible and accumulate as many high draft picks as possible. So far the results have been awful.
Joel Embiid, taken No. 3 in 2014, has yet to play after undergoing multiple foot surgeries. Nerlens Noel, taken sixth overall in 2013, shows promise as a shot-blocker, but has proven an awkward fit alongside Okafor, taken No. 3 in 2015. Another building block, Dario Saric, taken at No. 12 in 2014, is still playing in Europe with no plans to come over anytime soon.
Meanwhile, players like Canadian national team member Nik Stauskas, a No. 8 pick by Sacramento who arrived by trade this past summer, are learning on the job.
The question is: what do you learn when you are the anti-Golden State Warriors?
The loss dropped Philadelphia to 1-24 on the season, their only win coming against the almost equally hapless Los Angeles Lakers.
"Not speaking about any specific team, but in general it’s got to be tough," said Raptors head coach Dwane Casey about the challenges of teaching winning while losing, something he did during his first two years in Toronto before the miracle turnaround late in the 2013-14 season. "You need to see some rewards to reinforce what you’re talking about, what you’re preaching, because sooner or later, if there’s no rewards at the end of the rainbow, guys kind of tune it out. It’s important that they see some rewards, any team, at any level."
His counterpart Brett Brown can only dream. He’s impressed any and all by keeping a sense of calm and even managing to sound positive after winning just 38 since the start of the 2013-14 season.
But losing hurts.
"It gets to a stage, and my players and I, we talk about it freely, we can’t get to 85-85 with four minutes left and go, ‘Oh no, how do you walk this down,’ because we haven’t," said Brown, a long-time assistant with the San Antonio Spurs. "Your message is a little more powerful … if we can get a win and continue that on from a self-belief standpoint that is priceless. How can it not be? We’re all human beings."
Sunday night was more of the same for Philadelphia. They led early, trailed by 20 with three minutes left in the third quarter, cut the Raptors’ lead to six with seven minutes left before the game just disappeared on them.
"The biggest thing for me is to not being too critical of myself, but using the losses as motivation to work harder the next day," said Stauskas, the Toronto native who has struggled as the Sixers have struggled, although he did have nine points on eight shots Sunday evening. "What can you learn from that loss? If you sit there and beat yourself up every night because you’re losing, eventually you’re going to be depressed and be down and obviously that’s not good for your game."
The irony is that it’s still not clear which franchise — Toronto or Philadelphia — is on a more certain path towards an NBA championship.
For all their woes, the 76ers have an enviable pool of young assets and draft picks pouring from their pockets. They could have four first-rounders next summer alone. The hard truth of the NBA is a team only needs to hit on the right draft pick once or twice to have a good chance to be a top team if all the other factors — coaching, finances and depth — are properly accounted for.
Teams that really become elite often get lucky finding a top talent late in the draft. As much as the Golden State Warriors are the Steph Curry show, they became a powerhouse when Draymond Green, taken 35th overall in 2012, turned into a budding superstar. The San Antonio Spurs have been elevated all these years thanks to the contributions of Tony Parker, No. 28 in 2001, and Manu Ginobili, No. 58 in 1999.
The Sixers have 12 future second-round picks owed to them along with their own between now and 2020. At some point logic suggests they’ll land on the kind of talent you can win with, and maybe win big with.
The Raptors have certainly established they can win, but do they have the horses to compete for an NBA title? Great teams win titles, and in the NBA, great teams are typically built around a superstar or two.
Does Lowry or DeRozan qualify? And what happens after this year, with DeRozan heading into free agency and Lowry heading into a contract year at age 31?
Even as the Raptors may be in the midst of their best season of their best era, they give the impression of a team with a ceiling. Their time is now, even if their peak may be a string of near 50-win seasons and a few so-so playoff runs.
These are problems Brett Brown and the Philadelphia 76ers can only wish to have. But after years of pain there remains hope that one day they may have a team you can dream on.