The Sixers finally won something.
The ping-pong balls and hoops gods aligned last night at the NBA Draft Lottery to give the Sixers the No. 1 pick in the draft. Now they have to decided between LSU's Ben Simmons and Duke's Brandon Ingram.
But after years of former GM Hinkie's vision - dubbed 'The Process' - that amounted to losing games in hopes of securing high draft picks, they still were not as lucky as they could have been.
If the Los Angeles Lakers pick had fallen outside the top three, that also would have reverted to the Sixers, meaning they could have been picking No. 1 and as high as No. 4. That didn't happen. The Lakers check in with the No. 2 pick, which they will keep.
A lot of people are going to say that last night validated Sam Hinkie's stint as GM.
I'm not so sure. I just find something incredibly distasteful about losing on purpose. In other words, tanking.
Here's my take on what the Sixers have done. I look forward to them putting a legitimate team on the floor. They have a lot of pieces: Nerlens Noel, Jahlil Okafor, possibly even Joelle Embiid, who has yet to play a single second for the team, but was seen this week actually practicing. They will add another 'sure thing' with this No. 1 draft pick. Whether or not all these guys can play together is anybody's guess. That will be Brett Brown's job. He at least deserves the chance, after being saddled with the dreck that he has been trying to coach the past few years.
But I'm still holding my nose.
Bottom line? Tanks, but no tanks.
You can catch Jack McCaffery's take on the Sixers here.
In the meantime, my man Sam Bradford finally met the media yesterday. He said all the right things, even while seeming to throw his agent under the bus as the guy who came up with the ill-conceived holdout after the Eagles moved up to the No. 2 spot in the NFL Draft in order to draft North Dakota State Quarterback Carson Wentz.
Basketball? Football? How about those Phillies! They won again last night behind another solid performance from Vince Velasquez. And they got the first home run of his career from Tommy Joseph.
The Phils are now just a half-game out of first place in the NL East.
At this point, no doubt Richie Ashburn is looking down on all this with a wry smile and simply saying:
"Hard to believe, Harry."
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