27.
That's the most important number to come out of last night's Sixers' season opener.
Not that they lost 120-15 to the Wizards.
Not that Ben Simmons sparkled, scoring 18 points with 10 rebounds.
Not that Robert Covington had 29 points.
So what is the 27?
That's the number of minutes logged by center Joel Embiid.
It tells you that the tanking is over.
The Sixers actually are going to try to win games this year.
The team announced earlier that Embiid would start the season again on a minutes restriction, that he likely would play only 14 minutes. But he blew by that in the first half, and he was on the court with the game on the line in the final five minutes.
That tells you all you need to know about the change in attitude for the Sixers this year.
But it was not the best sports story in the region yesterday.
For that, you had to go to the Eagles.
But it had nothing to do with a game. And everything to do with life.
Chris Long, the defensive end who the Eagles signed as a free agent this year, announced he would donate his entire season of game checks to a fund being set up to push educational equality.
Long had already decided to donate his first six game checks in the wake of the controversy surrounding a white nationalist march in the town where he went to school at the University of Virginia.
You can get all the details here.
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