It has now been over a month since the 2015-2016 NBA season kicked off.
And what a month it’s been! Teams have been dunking and shooting and all that good basketball stuff. Steph Curry is shooting fire out of his eyes while simultaneously forgetting to miss a shot! LeBron is bringing mustaches back into style! Kristaps Porzingis is the Latvian, 7-Foot Tall second-coming of Christ!
All of these different topics to discuss, and yet my favorite has been the simple fact that almost every NBA team has won a basketball game.
Almost.
That’s right folks.
As of yesterday morning, December 1, 2015, almost every NBA team had won a game.
All except one- The Philadelphia 76ers.
After 18 grueling, heartbreaking attempts at coming out with more points than their opponent, the 76ers had still failed to secure a victory and sat at 0-18, the worst start to a season in NBA history.
But boy, the Sixers weren’t just losing. No, they were completely embarrassing themselves. On the relatively rare instances they weren’t being blown out, they were choking away fourth quarter leads or having their franchise star get busted for having a fake ID.
The 76ers start to the new basketball season was, essentially, a complete and total attack on the art of winning. This was a team that for years had made a mission statement that they were going to tank for the Lottery and were only now, when they had finally managed to draft a couple of nice talents in Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor, perfecting that goal both on and off the court.
It was awesome.
But all good things must come to an end, and last night, the 76ers reign of terror (or joy, in my case) came to an end.
The Philadelphia 76ers defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 103-91 to move to 1-18 on the season.
Will this start a playoff push? Has Sam Hinkie’s evil plan finally paid off? Will the Sixers ever lose again?
I don’t know. What I do know is that this is a sad day indeed.
Rooting for the Warriors to continue their magestic 19-0 winning streak has been almost as fun as praying for the Sixers to continue their apocalyptic 0-18 start. Now we are stuck with wanting a team from San Francisco- a place whose greatest achievement is carrying the Olson Twins to eight seasons of Full House- to continue steam rolling everyone. The last time Philadelphia was good for anything, John Hancock was telling King George to stick it. Since then, it’s been a long and steady road of bitter disappointments, culminating in Tuesday night’s victory (or loss, depending on how you look at it).
There is a slight joy to be found though, as Kobe Bryant made one thing abundantly clear about his final season- He does give a $#!%.
Kobe YOLO https://t.co/9A6xnH0TBJ
— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) December 2, 2015
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Kobe 2nd 3 Cross Over. https://t.co/EHQHArdda0 — BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) December 2, 2015
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Kobe First 3, Off The Hop https://t.co/Hs31t2j5ny
— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) December 2, 2015
The cool thing about those three tweets is that all of those shots went in! Kobe is back! The Lakers are back! The push for the 6th ring is on!
Nope! Just kidding! Kobe made only one other three pointer last night, then proceeded to just…keep…shooting, finishing with a 4-17 mark, which isn’t that terrible for 2015 Kobe Bryant. But wait, that isn’t 4-17 on FGA, that’s 4-17 on 3PA! He actually ended his night at a magnificent mark of 7-26.
This is a new low for Kobe. For the first time in history, he was so bad that he forced even the 76ers to win a basketball game, in the process making Philly do literally the opposite of what they wanted to. Just incredible.
Here’s to hoping this is what the rest of the Kobe-retirement tour looks like, while also hoping the 76ers can get back to basics and start losing some dang basketball games again.
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