Philadelphia 76ers Nightmare Continues
The Philadelphia 76ers tanked all season long for the chance to draft highly touted, once in a decade prospect Andrew Wiggins from the Kansas Jayhawks. Philadelphia finished their dreadful season with only 19 wins and the league's worst record. The 76ers tied an NBA record after dropping 26 straight games. Let's take a deeper dive into the 76ers' season to forget. Philadelphia finished the year dead last in points allowed (109.9) and offensive rating (99.4). They struggled shooting the ball all season, making only 43.5% of their field goal attempts as a team (29th in the league). Meanwhile, they were incapable of stopping their opposition from scoring at the other end of the floor, giving up the third-most field goals and second-most three-point field goals in the league. They also struggled mightily rebounding the ball, giving away the second-most total rebounds in the league.
Philadelphia were supposed to be making a move toward being one of the best teams in the East with the acquisition of Andrew Bynum and the emergence of Jrue Holiday and Thaddeus Young as fantastic talents in the league. Unfortunately, Head Coach Doug Collins' team constantly took long, inefficient 2-point shots and Bynum didn't play a second of basketball for the Sixers. On draft night last year, new GM Sam Hinkie shocked the NBA world when he traded Jrue Holiday to the New Orleans Pelicans for the draft rights of Nerlens Noel (Kentucky Wildcats) and the Pelicans' 2014 first round pick. Noel missed all of the 2013-2014 season recovering from ACL Surgery. With the 11th pick in the draft, the 76ers selected Michael Carter-Williams (PG, Syracuse). Carter-Williams went onto be the Rookie of the Year
After their horrific season, the 76ers were looking forward to the NBA Draft Lottery where they would learn their fate for the 2014 NBA Draft. After the lottery, Phili fans were devastated as they lost all season long and ended up with the 3rd pick in this year's draft. Philadelphia watched Cleveland picking first overall for the second year in a row snatch Andrew Wiggins followed by the Bucks drafted Jabari Parker. Now it was time to see who GM Sam Hinkie would pick after tanking all season long. The 76ers pulled the trigger on many expert's top prospect in the draft, 7-footer Joel Embiid. Embiid will most likely miss the entire upcoming season recovering from Surgery on his foot. Does this story sound familiar? While some think the Sixers had the steal of the draft, drafting the top overall prospect with the 3rd pick, others see the worst team in the league drafting a player who won't see any action this upcoming season. The Embiid pick is definately a risk, but with the risk, certainly comes a high reward as many compare his game/skills to "The Dream" Hakeem Olajuwan. Look at the bright side Sixer fans, this season Nerlens Noel will Debut.
By Steven Spector - 6-29-14
