I think that they raised their attendance according to an nba.com article Here it is: http://www.nba.com/2014/news/features/david_aldridge/11/24/morning-tip-philadelphia-76ers-fans-atlanta-hawks-recover-from-danny-ferry-fallout/index.html?ls=iref%3Anbahpt6e&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=NBA%20National%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=GMIB%2011%2F25%2F2014
If I were a Philly fan I would be thrilled. They've been mediocre to terrible since the end of the Iverson era. They finally have a capable GM with a plan to bring them back to relevance. Yes, it will be painful. Yes, it will require patience. But there is a plan. And already they have guys like Nerlens Noel, Michael Carter Williams, KJ McDaniels, Tony Wroten and Joel Embiid to show for it. That's A LOT of solid young talent Hinkie has gathered. I suspect this is the last season they will be in full blown tank mode. I would imagine they're going to try to draft Okafor, decide which of the THREE supremely talented bigs they want to keep out of Okafor, Embiid and Noel and trade the one they don't for a star on the market. I suspect they'd strike out luring big name free agents, but who knows. They are definitely going to have the cap space. I really think they may be an exciting team to watch as soon as next year.
There are a lot of better options than the current lottery. But I doubt it will ever change. And hopefully the 76ers will have enough by the 2015-2016 season to try to win again. They pretty much are a disgrace right now.
yeah the 76ers will have alot of assets, but they now severely lack a winning attitude. Players do not win championships, ORGANIZATIONS DO. All of these young guys coming up will know nothing but losing and I think learning how to win will be their biggest challenge.
howd that work out for kevin durant and his first 2 years of tank? The organization assembles players, but dont let anyone trick you into believing its anyone but the players winning.
But are these paid attendance or tickets given away? And what price are the tickets being sold for? I heard on radio that PHI is doing a promotion where fans who attend one game and bring one or more boxes of mac and cheese to donate gets a free ticket to a future game.
I don't care. If they want to do it then that's fine. They aren't guaranteed a #1 pick. I would like to go back to the 1990 system though. That would make the lotto more fun and spread out the odds of winning.
Tanking is the one of the worst things that can happen in sports - it's an insult to the integrity of the game... If you want to trade away talent to play youngsters with hope they can grow and be a benefit to the future (and suck in the present) - fine... but to go out and not at least TRY to win is just a travesty....
Did you watch the Sixers play the Rockets? It was exactly as you described. They traded away their vets and allowed their youngsters to play and grow. Those kids were trying to win. They're just not there yet. That Sixers team is trying to win every night.
Who is this really directed at? The Philly players or front office? I think the players are in fact trying to win, it's just that the skills aren't fully developed yet and there's no cohesion to that team. The front office however, is actively trying to not gather expensive older players that would obviously bring leadership and more wins this season, but I would argue it's not a bad strategy because they're trying to win in the long term. Those few playoff appearances by Philly in the post-Iverson era really weren't doing anything for them. The "be a bottom feeder or be a contender" approach that GMs are taking these days are a reflection of the times and the new CBA. Similar to how the NBA is trending towards a layups and 3s game plan with the mid-range being the most inefficient shot of all, the middling 10th-6th seeds of each conference are like the most inefficient ways to build a contender.
I personally love what the sixers are doing. They are increasing efficiency in the whole system by agresively responding to the incentives the cba provides. It's not their fault the league has not matured yet to provide a sophisticated system that balances giving bad teams a lot of support to regain a chance of being competitive with mitigating the incentive to lose to gain such support.
The 76ers are a natural consequence of the system. They're just playing the system in the best way possible for their own benefit (which is what you want of your own team ideally). Fans want teams that are potential championship contenders. With the rise of "super teams" with 3 all stars, it puts tremendous pressure on teams to assemble 2+ all stars. High profile and larger markets have advantages that smaller/lower profile markets do not in attracting free agents. The lottery rewards teams with poor performance through statistical advantage. It shouldn't surprise anyone when a team like the 76ers decides to try to maximize their chances of acquiring all star level talent through the draft. Now, if you want to discourage/shorten the tanking cycle then you need to introduce disincentives to forming "super teams" as well as reduce the necessity for long periods of tanking. Personally I think the best way to do this would be to do the following... 1. Leave the team salary cap in place (limiting spending) but reduce it by 33% -- the current individual player cap (due to no. 3 below). 2. Remove the individual player salary cap (pay more for superstars instead of the same price for super stars, all stars and fringe all stars). 3. Introduce a "franchise player tag" that allows you to sign ONE player at unlimited salary that does NOT impact the team salary cap but they must be the same player as the 5 year contract extension. So, in practice... a) you would get teams getting into a bidding war for a superstar like Lebron James ($40-50M). b) the team that signed a "franchise player" would have $50m vs $75m in cap space to assemble the rest of the team c) in order to get a 2nd or 3rd all star, they would be able to bid the market value but would be bidding against teams that could sign that player without cap implication d) it would still give teams the advantage in retaining their current players due to the 5th year The main advantages in this case would be that teams without any all stars would have a bidding advantage over teams that already have a big salary all star on their roster. And teams that get a 2nd all star would face more limited resource in assembling the remainder of their roster. So, a scenario might play out like this... Your team signs Lebron James at $50M (no cap hit). They then have $50M to sign a second all star... they could try for Kevin Durant for $40M (but have only $10M to fill out the roster), or they could try for a lower tier all star/fringe all star like John Wall for $16M, or they could just decide to spend the full $50M on top flight role players. It would force teams to think seriously about depth, fit and use of resources as well as give non-marquee teams a bidding advantage to prevent the "rich" from getting "richer". A team like the Miami big 3 would be far less likely to happen as the amount of money that the players would be giving up would be far larger. Can you imagine Lebron giving up $30M, Wade giving up $15M and Bosh giving up $15M per year to form a team? Over 4 years they would be passing up $120M, $60M and $60M in earnings. Sure, Lebron earns a boatload in endorsements but for almost everyone else they could never offset that much money through endorsements. How does this help with tanking? It gives bad teams the opportunity to "buy" their way into legitimate all stars (bidding advantage against teams that already have an all star). It also means that since you only need 1 real all star talent to field a competitive team that even if you do decide to tank you don't need to tank nearly as long, or as hard since there will be more teams with all star level talent on their rosters. Anyway, just some thoughts...
There's actually a very real consequence to tanking, the attendance will plummet that's why very few teams (actually none) have gone all out like what the Sixers have done because it becomes expensive to tank, nobody wants to pay expensive tix to see their team lose, majority of people will just tune out and then follow the team in the draft. In the case of the 76ers, they have been tanking for a couple of years now but have yet to hit on a real superstar, if this continues in 3 years rookie contracts for their current players will be up and they would have spent years of tanking and losing attendance for nothing. There's a very good reason why the rich get richer in the NBA, and that's because there's a huge disparity between front offices. What happens is the dumb teams get high picks but they pick the crappiest players, while the good teams find excellent talent later in the draft. So making alterations in the current system won't change anything, at the end of the day you'll still see teams with bad FOs like Cavs screwing up, I mean they traded Wiggins for yet another PF in Love what if Love goes and signs with a good team like Spurs at the end of the season?
No they won't lol. 1) It lowers the cap, lowering the cap would mean less money for the 99% of players who aren't superstars, they and their agents would be opposed to this. 2) It increases the payroll, previously owner X would only have to pay 60M total a year on salaries, now he can expect pay 50M alone on just 1 player? They would be opposed to this, you had owners bickering over small percentage of profit sharing how many would react if it meant the cost of salaries could double depending on the player? What's the point of team salary cap if at the end of the day you end up paying 100M on salaries because your superstar makes 50M by himself? 3) How does this help parity? One of the main reasons the salary cap was instituted was not only to decrease the cost, but also so richer teams like NYC or LA can't offer more for superstar players than smaller teams like Memphis or Utah or Cleveland. If there's an unlimited salary clause teams like Brooklyn and NYC can have their pick of superstar of choice, Lebron won't go back to Clveland if Brooklyn tells him they can give him 100M a year. 4) It's not the rich get richer, it's the smart get richer. Having tons of money didn't help Portland during the Jail Blazer years, and NYC/Brooklyn have so much money at their disposal and yet they're fielding horrible teams. This kind of restrictive cap system pretty much makes it so dumb teams like Cleveland can lock themselves up for horrible contracts with no end in sight. Imagine if their owner signs Irving to 40M per year franchise tag and now has no money left to spend. Then Lebron becomes a free agent and NYC decides they'd rather have Lebron over Melo and offers him 100M unlimited salary. So Lebron goes to NYC and attracts vets like Shawn Marion/Ray Allen/Mike Miller, while Cleveland is stuck with Irving and no name scrubs. To top it off since attendance is bad and the owner just spent 80M on salaries total they end up having to sell their lottery draft pick to raise funds. GG LOL. This would remind of those Minnesotta teams where Mchale broke the bank on KG and had only 20% left to spend on other players.
tanking doesnt automatically give you being a contender, unless there is a cant miss prospect like Duncan or Lebron, and how often does that happen? Cavs was in top 5 in every draft 4 years in a row (including 3 #1 picks), and they didnt do anything until they got Lebron back, and right now they are 8-7, not that great, they probably going to the playoffs, but just because the east keeps being weak.
Exactly, call me crazy but I don't see anything wrong with the current system, no matter how much you game it you are still going to have inequality unless teams are allowed to have a "reset" button and undo their horrible signings. While the 76ers look like they're making a mockery of the system, let's not forget that all their tanking does is give them 25% chance at the top pick. That's not exactly a sure thing, in fact last year they ended up with the worst pick possible at no 3 so tbh I don't think the rewards for tanking justify what the 76ers are doing right now, destroying your ticket attendance and instilling a losing culture isn't worth 25% chance at a top pick LOL.
nothing wrong with tanking. Takes more courage to do it than put out a mediocre squad every year. Owners lose money, but invest on the possibility of a bright future.
Yeah of course generally speaking it's better to blow it up rather than be like the Hawks (or the Rox) and try to make the playoffs every year however IMHO the 76ers fell in love with tanking so much they screwed themselves over just to tank more. Coming into the draft they already have a good Center prospect in Noels, and instead of getting players who could grow with him they get yet another center with serious back problems in Embiid and a PF who just signed a long term contract in Europe and might never come to the NBA. Tearing your ACL isn't really a big deal, you sit out a season but the recovery rate is absurdly high, with the technology today athletes pretty much heal 100% and in some cases end up with ACLs stronger than before. On the other hand a guy with back problems BEFORE bulking up and taking the pounding in the NBA is a cause for concern, Yao Ming for example had no health problems whatsoever coming in and ended his NBA career barely able to walk. Embiid and that other dude they took had no business being in the top 10 given their likelihood of having a meaningful NBA career, it's painfully obvious Philly took them because they won't be able to play this season and thus allow the team to tank more. The problem though is that even if they took perfectly good young players those guys still wouldn't be good enough to lift the 76ers to a good record, for example OKC had horrible records up to year four of the Durant era, and that was a squad with Ibaka, Harden, KD and WB already. IMHO the 76ers wasted last season because it's highly unlikely the guys they got will be part of the 76ers core, if I was the owner their GM would have to do some serious explaining because their FO just basically wasted a year's worth of tanking so they can tank even more. Would their team record be radically different if they took, say Marcus Smart and a PF like Randle or even Embiid if they really like him as he would've still have been available at the 9th? I don't think so, and if they whiff on this year's Okafor (75% chance of this happening) maybe the 76ers will take some injured dude again.
