I find it interesting that in LarBrd's world the 76ers and Celtics are roughly equivalent in success over the past couple of years, using one metric: playoff series wins.
To be clear, my point is that if both teams are trying to become contenders, neither has yet succeeded. I suspect Boston will keep making improvements. A trade or big draft could vault them into contention. We certainly hope that happens. But having seen teams make rapid jumps from 20 wins to 60+, It's not out of the realm of possibility that teams like Philly and the Wolves become contenders before we do.
No doubt that Boston is a better team right now. We should win about 55 games. We could finish 2nd in the East. We could win as many as two playoff series this year.
A full-strength Philly team is probably closer to a .500 win borderline playoff team than it is a league bottomfeeder - they are 7-7 in games Embiid has scored 20 or more (which is an encouraging sign of what's to come when the minutes restriction lifts for the future superstar). They are 4-3 in games Noel has received 10 minutes or more (he's been injured for most of the year and has 25 minutes in his last two games - the success speaks to the possibility of him fitting in there long-term as an elite backup big man)... and of course they have still not suited up their other potential franchise player, Ben Simmons. Despite this, Philly at max strength is still very unlikely to be anywhere near as good as Boston is right now for at least a couple years.
That said, fan approval for the two teams has to be about even right now. I mean, we LOVE Thomas, but I'm pretty sure Philly fans are already naming their children after Embiid. And it's telling that in our very own Arena in Boston, chants of "TRUST THE PROCESS!!" drowned out our own fans. I doubt there are many Philly fans that would swap places with us. So in response to oldtype's earlier comment questioning if fans can enjoy watching a team that isn't a contender... the point is if don't care about being a contender right now and are measuring success by entertainment factor and enjoyment of watching non-contenders play, Philly fans and Boston fans are both pretty elated right now.
Its tough to quantify fan value however, Boston is currently 12th in the NBA filling 99.2% of their seats with the 8th highest average ticket prices.
The Sixers are 26th in the NBA, filling 82.1% of their seats with the 24th highest average ticket values.
These numbers could be a bit off because Im using last years picket prices with this years attendance.
I know Celtics tickets increased in cost this year. I dont know if Philly's did. I do know that Philly hasnt raised their ticket prices at any point in the past decade.
The Celtics fans have had and continue to have greater entertainment value than the Sixers. You can make pointless claims like saying the Sixers are "lit" but if they were that "lit" theyd be buying tickets and showing up to games.
They could also be off because Boston is considerably more expensive than Philadelphia (thus comparative ticket prices don't mean much). Or perhaps because the Wells Fargo Center is full 2,000 seats larger than the Garden. These numbers are not very informative, really.
Even when accounting for cost of living
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&city1=Philadelphia%2C+PA&country2=United+States&city2=Boston%2C+MA
Celtics tickets are more expensive than 76ers tickets in 2016
https://www.statista.com/statistics/193720/average-ticket-price-in-the-nba-by-team-in-2016/
and even if we just count average attendence (which should slant things in Phillys favor because during sellouts they get another 2000 people) Boston still has more average fans per home game (they rank 12th Philly 19th).
conclusion: the Celtics are more "lit"
In fact, this years 6ers have, thus far, a lower average home attendance than the 34 win Sixersof 12/13 at which point I dont think Id call the fanbase "lit"
76ers typical attendence hovers around 13,800 and 14,700 per game. That's what it was in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016.
In the years they made the playoffs (2009 and 2012, attendence jumped to 16,500 .... They have averaged 16,600 per game this year despite sucking. So attendence is similar to years they make the playoffs.
Their last game they had 17,124 in attendence against a 11 win team. The last game they had against a team anyone in Philly gives a dam about, the Lakers, was an above sell-out crowd of 20,491 for a 20,318 capacity arena.
That fanbase is LIT.
Also consider that season tickets are typically sold prior to the season. A team coming off a historically losing season (10 wins) isn't selling a lot of season tickets. And nobody really anticipated that Joel Embiid would be this incredible this early. I suspect attendance will just go higher and higher as the season progresses and Simmons returns... and as a result the average attendance will be higher than the playoff levels it's getting right now. It's ridiculous to compare their attendence to a team that projected to win 55 games this season and is coming off back-to-back playoff appearances with the most loyal fanbase in sports. Boston are slightly more excited than they are in a typical year.
On the flip side, Philly fan approval is the highest it's been since the Iverson era. LIT.
Topic: All Things Philadelphia 76ers (merged Sixers threads) (Read 368779 times)