This story appears in ESPN The Magazine's Dec. 25 issue. Subscribe today!
There is, at long last, life in Philadelphia. The 76ers have a must-watch center in Joel Embiid, who talks and taunts a lot, and a must-see everything in Ben Simmons, who doesn't. The fan base, after years of historic losing, has adopted the brashness of Embiid -- emboldened, vindicated and hungry. The 76ers were first in home attendance and seventh on the road through Dec. 19. Last season they were 18th and 30th, respectively. "The process" worked. They've arrived. Or so they think.
The 76ers not only see triumph in their potential but also inspiration from a different team in a different sport: the Houston Astros, who trusted a similar process and now hold the World Series hardware. With Houston winning it all, a once-ridiculed blueprint now lives without stigma. But if tanking, with all its cynical wisdom, is the sign of a wise blueprint, then sports needs a new blueprint.
Even if the championship-thirsty fans are content when the thaw arrives, tanking sacrifices the players, virtually all of whom were used to winning environments in high school and college, only to come to the NBA and be part of a team that isn't even attempting to win, never mind developing the players as people or professionals. Coaches have benefited from the narrative of being the great molders of men, yet not trying to win doesn't suggest a nurturing approach. When situations go south and young NBA players find themselves in financial or legal trouble, they are blamed for not being sufficiently mature or "ready" for the NBA, but little is mentioned about their being set up to fail by an organization that is simply killing time until a kid like Ben Simmons declares for the NBA draft. Professional sports has already mastered the practice of dehumanizing athletes through language -- they're referred to as "specimens," "pieces" and "assets," to name a few -- but to purposely inflict the psychological damage of losing on players is the height of unprofessional.
Tanking as a strategy is created for profit, not parity. Team owners aim for "cost certainty," which is just Wharton-speak for salary caps, revenue sharing, drafts, rookie contracts and max deals. Philadelphia is the sixth-largest city in the country, but from 2013-14 to 2015-16, the 76ers lost more than 75 percent of their games each season. Houston is the fourth-largest city in the U.S., but from 2011 to 2014, the Astros lost 90 to more than 100 games a season. The local revenue for both teams to spend to compete should be ample. Instead, they rake in revenues from the public, put a loser on the field and call it strategy.
Some fans are willing to be gamed by a system that guarantees profit for owners while selling losing as the natural cost of improvement -- never mind that it runs counter to the demand ticket buyers have of players, expecting hustle and effort no matter what the score. Fans, co-opted by management to believe in a corrupt system, become comfortable losing, invested in losing, feel smart explaining that losing 70 games is a good thing. Yet they are also routinely outraged when a player decides he wants to change teams because he wants to win. (Yes, you, Kevin Durant.)
All of that creates a disconnect between the fan and team -- and as usual, the player loses.
The cost of tanking is steep, financially and emotionally. The 76ers lowered the price of some items at the arena while they quit until their new plan was ready to be hatched, but it is quite a gamble to waste the fan base's time. Of course, there are those who will say that three years of historic losing is worth a chance to win a title, but maybe that's not the equation. Maybe it is time to dump the draft and make every player coming out of college a free agent to be bid on whether a team won 73 games or lost 72. Or maybe if American sports is going to tell its fans that losing is good for them, it needs a relegation system that will give teams incentive to win or risk disappearance.
In the meantime, the 76ers are awake. Philadelphia fans, who haven't seen a title in 34 years or a Finals trip since 2001, might feel vindicated by "the process," but the real undertaking should be eradicating a system in which the suits get to call themselves geniuses for not trying.