Look they are 8-5, thats a roughly 51 win pace despite playing 9 road games and only 4 home games (where they are 4-0). Thats also despite having their starting lineup together for very few of those games due to a short injury to Simmons and a suspension for Embiid. Tobias Harris isnt going to shoot 25% from 3 this year, and Al Horford will probably shoot better than 31%.
Sure, they have structural problems, and I love watching them lose as much as the next guy, but their downfall is being greatly exaggerated on this board.
Post here is kind of missing some important details. You are touting their 4-0 home record but it includes three wins against teams that were in the lottery last year and two that are objectively bad (hornets and Cavs by one point in a game the year should have lost). I definitely wouldn’t be surprised if they won like 8 in a row and were first in the east in a month, but acting like they haven’t been mediocre so far is weird.
They have also played 13 games and only three of those games were against teams that will definitely make the playoffs (us, Denver and jazz)
No, its not. The sixers have been a much better team at home then the road winning roughly 75% of their home games and only 50% of their road games so playing a road heavy opening schedule will in fact decrease their win totals. Their schedule, while not the most difficult, hasn't been incredibly easy either. Tankathon has their SOS at 17th in the league, so slightly easier than average but not by a lot. They've also already made one full west cast road trip which only happens about twice a year and is notoriously difficult quality of opponents aside.
Also they literally haven't been mediocre, they are tied for the 9th best record in the NBA. They have been less than everybody expected, but by no means bad and as I pointed out there is plenty of room for simple reversion to the mean to allow them to improve.
Again, I'm not saying they are gonna be elite or ECF favorites or anything, but its not a full blown panic time yet.
I totally agree with you. If the Sixers were 9-4 instead of 8-5, they would be on a 56 win pace which is better than Vegas at 53.5, better than BPI or 538, and right on pace with the overall ESPN win projection. It isn't like they are well below .500 or anything. Changing the outcome of 1 game this early in the year alters things a lot.
This is a bit silly if you have actually been following their games. They won two games on buzzer beaters by one point (and they were down basically the whole 4th in both those games). You could make the case they stole games from Portland and Atlanta and Cleveland (yikes) that they really deserved to lose. I would concede Denver stole the game against them in Denver (I was at it). But if you are going to play the game of changing their record, they really should probably be 7-6 and not moving in the other direction. If they were 7-6 they would be on like a 43 win pace and may not make playoffs. They have been playing very average, and thoroughly mediocre to what they were projected for. No other way to honestly slice it. Very well could turn it around completely and rattle off 12 straight wins (i am worried they could), but lets be honest about how they have played with the 17th ranked schedule so far.
Again, no its not. Their expected W-L record is the same as their current win loss record, their point differential is indicative of a team with the record the currently have. You can point out that they've won some close games but they've also lost some close games.
Also I was wrong about their strength of schedule, their schedule thus far has been 19th. Their schedule going forward is 17th. So they've played a stretch of games pretty similar to what their overall season strength looks like.
Could you use actual discussion of the games they have played rather than relying on statistics that can be very easily skewed by a big blowout (especially at this point in the season). I have provided three wins that they have had that were rather improbable. They trailed Portland the entire game including ten going into the 4th quarter. They won on a buzzer beater 3. Would you say that was not a bit lucky?
Do we think they were lucky to win the Atlanta game? They were down basically the entire game and won on two free throws with 5 seconds.
Where they lucky to beat Cleveland? They were down the entire 4th and took their first lead of the quarter with 5 seconds or so left. Kevin Love missed a wide open shot that would have won it at the buzzer.
Now games they should won that they lost? They definitely should have beaten Denver as they dominated them for 3 quarters (much like these other teams were dominating them. They were unlucky and also were the victim of a lucky shot by Jokic and a bad foul call. (i was at this game)
While they only lost by 2 to Utah they were down by multiple posessions the entire 4th quarter (don't believe they ever had the chance to tie or take the lead at any point in the 4th. They scored a meaningless jumper at the buzzer to make it a 2 point loss instead of 4. I watched that game and would certainly say they deserved to lose (and that was generally the take I read on liberty ballers also)
You could argue they could have beat OKC (an overtime game), but they did get absolutely steamrolled in overtime.
None of their other games were really random or lucky that you could argue the end result was not legitimately earned. The problem with your stats versus actually watching the game is that they look like a bit of a better team because of two games blowing out Cleveland by 20 and blowing out the Twolves by 22 after Embiid and Towns were ejected. If you really want to hang your hat on that as a better indicator of how they have played for their years rather than actually watching the games, that strikes me as quite bizarre. Again I think anyone that has watched there games would say if anything they are a little worse than their record (and absolutely not better than it). Sorry.
Your argument is essentially they arent playing well, yet they are about to be 9-5. If thats them not playing well (which I agree with, they arent) then the eastern conference could be in trouble because they are still winning at a not unreasonable pace.
I'm not going to go back and parse every singe game, thats a huge waste of everybody's time. You can do the same exercise as you've done above with every team in the league and nitpick their point differential, wins ect. You can do the exact same thing with the Celtics and argue their elite point differential was built against charlotte, new York, the spurs (who might just be bad?) ect. Blowing out bad teams is what good teams do, thats not a demerit.
I have watched quite a few of their games and I agree they haven't played real well, but my point isnt that they have looked great. its that every body here burying them are being premature. Its to soon to say anything remotely like "The 76ers are in trouble." If they are 15-10 after twenty five with a mediocre Point Diff we can revisit this.
Topic: All Things Philadelphia 76ers (merged Sixers threads) (Read 369803 times)