It was never a "losing culture". It was an injury culture. Now they are a little healthy and looking good. Imagine if they ever get fully healthy. Oof.
They won't finish last? Enter the playoffs? Win a playoff game? omg that would be so wild. Just
imagine that. Or better, just imagine the kind of posts we will see here if this happens. Half our threads will be relating the glorious success that Philly is and how we have failed by comparison.
I'm tired of the amount of trolling on this subject. What Philly has now is Embiid and (maybe) Ben Simmons. Here are some questions:
-Is this a good enough payoff for three (and counting) seasons of tanking? Was tanking the only way to get two elite young players? Can you not think of teams that did with less tanking?
-Assuming for the sake of the argument that both Simmons and Embiid reach their full potential, is that enough to make them a playoff team? A contender?
-Can you not think of teams with even better young talents that have failed in recent NBA history? This season?
-Why don't we see here similar threads and comments about Jazz, Detroit, NOP, or Minny? Do they have less talent, worse coaches, worse records?
-Doesn't the fact that Hinkie lost his job mean that something went wrong?
(yes, all questions are rhetorical)
What particularly irks me is that the exaggeration on the part of certain poster(s) pushes everyone to one extreme or the other and makes good conversation impossible.
Please, do consider for a moment that ppl might disagree with you for reasons other than disliking Philly or tanking and take once again the discussion to this direction.
In my POV, Hinkie took a great risk and failed. Sure, it was not a complete failure - but do bear in mind that the NBA is built in such a way as to make
complete failure impossible: that was
exactly the structural weakness that Hinkie exposed and exploited. It was though
clearly a failure by the standards Hinkie had set to himself.
So, I won't say that Philly is an abomination, or that it failed completely, and I won't let me slip into into an argument where both sides claim things the other side never said.
But pretending to be excited about a franchise with this roster, winning record, and FO is not serious and will not lead to serious conversation.
PS Do not even get me started on the >injury culture> bit. This quote belongs to the trolling HoF.