Heard in the Cheap Seats

from kdrv.com

I have resigned myself to the fact that the Sixers are an average basketball team, destined to play .500 basketball, and maybe get as high as #6 seed in the playoffs (Note: I only say #6 seed because the Pistons seem to have packed it in completely for this year).  Sometimes I wonder why I watch every game.  I mean, it is true that I need to keep tabs on the team for the purposes of this website, but that has nothing to do with it.  Pure and simple:  I love basketball.  I always have and I always will.  I have loved the Sixers my whole life, and that is why I watch.  The NBA season is much different from the NFL season, so one Sixers loss certainly doesn’t inflict as much pain on me as an Eagles loss.  But, that doesn’t mean that I don’t care as much.  I have come to realize that I am the exact type of sports fan that many look at and shake their heads because they don’t understand.  Call me whatever you want, but it will never change the fact that sports has been a huge part of my life, my friendships, and my family.  I realize that maybe my passion can go overboard occasionally.  Either way, I am not the type of fan that is completely unaffected by losing and mediocrity.

I say all this because the Sixers are an extremely frustrating team to watch.  As a fan, it is frustrating to root for a team for 82 games, but also know that your team has absolutely no chance to win an NBA title.  That is where we are with the Sixers.  There is no chance of a title in the foreseeable future.  But, the funny thing is, this is a pretty fun team to watch.  They are young and athletic, but they are still an average team.  It’s frustrating, yes, but I guess I try to see the positives as much as I can.  My hope is that the Sixers young core can develop over time to become a part of the NBA’s elite.  What else is there to hope for?  In the NBA, it is tough to go from average to great unless the players you have develop.  With the salary cap the way it is, unless you get lucky and land an all-timer like LeBron James, or you’re the Celtics and you have the money to bring in KG and Allen in the same year, you have to “dance with the ones that brought you”.  I think that’s how the saying goes.  I have no idea what the future holds for the Sixers.  That is very hard to predict in the NBA, but I will continue to root for them the same way I did when I was 8 years old.

SIXERS VS WIZARDS

Speaking of frustration, one of the marks of a young team is inconsistency.  Well, if the Sixers do anything consistently, it s being inconsistent!  Not only are they prone to extended winning and losing streaks, but they are one of the most inconsistent team I have ever seen in the same damn game.  They have this uncanny way of looking like world beaters against even the best teams in the league, and in the very next quarter they look like an average Division III team.  Now, that is frustrating to watch, my friends.  All of this has led to the Sixers current 4 game losing streak that has crushed any momentum they had built with their 4 game winning streak heading into the break.  The Wizards are a terrible basketball team, so I fully expect them to end their slide, and if they don’t, it is inexcusable.  As I mentioned earlier in this post, the Sixers will not win an NBA title this year, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t expect them to continue to improve, make the playoffs, and maybe even win a round.  They need to stop this trend of playing bad basketball for 4 or 5 straight games.  They are on one of those runs right now.  Say what you want about the Nets game and the fact that they lost on a buzzer beater, but it should have never come down to that.  That is the mark of an inconsistent team.  Inconsistent teams lose games that they should win.  Think of how many last second losses the Sixers have this year.  These young guys need to learn how to close out those games.  Before the break, the Sixers had a heart breaking loss to the Nets followed by a buzzer beater by Ray Allen and the Celtics.  They followed that up with a nice 4 game winning streak.  They need to regroup once again after another bad Nets loss.  It starts tonight.  It’s time to man up.  It’s time that one of the Sixers takes over in a late game situation and refuses to let the team blow another lead.  The Sixers have gotten away from the type of basketball that produces wins for them.  It all starts with aggressive defense and solid rebounding for the Sixers.  They have 27 games left in the season.  If this young team is going to gain anything from this season, they need to make these 27 games its own season.  They are 0-0 at this point.  Can they go on a run like they did in January and go something like 18-9?  That remains to be seen, but I am looking at tonight’s game as the starting point.

RANDOM NOTE

I looked up a very interesting stat.  The NBA game has dramatically changed over the years, and I think the stat shows that and also shows one of the obvious flaws in the Sixers game.  Three point shooting has become a huge part of the NBA game, and the Sixers rank dead last in the league.  What I found interesting was the teams that rank near the top and the teams near the bottom in this statistic.  Obviously, there are a couple exceptions, but it really stood out to me.  Get some shooters please!  Check it out for yourself here.