Written by Jalil Phillips at Total Sports Live
Heading into the new year with a single victory isn’t something that we considered possible in a league as talented and competitive as the NBA. It is a recent phenomenon that NBA teams have had extremely bad records. In fact, 18 of the 50 worst NBA teams, categorized by record and win percentage, have occurred after the year 1999. This means that 36 percent of the NBA’s worst records have come only in the last 15 seasons. For a league that has a history dating back to the merger in 1946, that is a statistical head-scratcher.
With that being said, the Philadelphia 76ers are the most unfortunate team in the modern NBA.
Never in the history of the league has team leadership chosen to tank multiple seasons as blatantly as 76ers GM Sam Hinkie has. Over the past three seasons, Hinkie has manufactured teams that have won a combined 38 games to date, which is particularly sad considering that they won 34 games in 2012-2013 season. Keep in mind that he has done this, despite having an amazing player developer as Head Coach in Brett Brown and commendable progress made from rising players such as Michael Carter-Williams (the 2014 Rookie of the Year), Nerlens Noel, Robert Covington, and Jahlil Okafor (not to mention the seeming development of Joel Embiid and Tony Wroten, both of which are attempting to return from injuries). It takes a special kind of tanking plan to convince fans that trading the R.O.Y was a good idea for the team’s future as well. Even the ownership became wary of the constant losing that has been taking place.
Enter Jerry Colangelo.
When the commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver, and the 76ers owner, Josh Harris “plead” for your assistance, who would expect him to say no? Colangelo was given the chance to work for the 76ers on his own terms at his own availability with an excellent amount of power with the organization. The bigger question, however, is WHY the COMMISSIONER of the league got involved in the direct hiring of a team official. Inexperienced owners, a misguided GM, a talent-lacking team, and collective ignorance comes to mind, but many teams have gone through bad years (although not as bad as the last few for this team). The real reason is very clear and obvious.
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