Sixers' Dispiriting Rebuilding Effort a Plan the NBA Should Hope Never Succeeds

Let's just imagine what would happen if by some dumb luck or alien invasion the Philadelphia 76ers actually succeed.

In this scenario, the 76ers' horrible commitment to losing to get future high draft picks (and treating the people they do have as disposable assets instead of human beings) works out somehow, and an even worse stage arrives.

Other NBA teams copy them.

Gone would be a functional NBA. Instead, we'd have scads of clubs intentionally being noncompetitive, refusing to pay for established professionals and making a farce of the league.

And people would copy them, rest assured, because that's what happens if anyone succeeds with something—whether it's the Spurs resting their players to the dismay of the league office or taking the shine off the second round with the draft-and-stash usage of international leagues.

As it stands now, though, the Sixers are just hurting themselves and only their small slice of integrity of the league. Could be a lot worse, I guess.

Then again, if the 76ers somehow succeeded and we saw full-out tanking commitments being made by numerous franchises, maybe the NBA Board of Governors would be moved to eliminate the current draft system. Now that would be a worthwhile silver lining!

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If the only way we can get rid of the draft lottery that rewards losers is for the Sixers to push it to the nth degree and prove the system is flawed, so be it. The truth is the NBA is different from other sports leagues because of how tempting it is to tank and turn a five-man unit around with just one or two blue-chip draftees.

Alas, counting on Philadelphia to succeed in any form—even if all its distressed investments were to turn into jackpots—is impossible to fathom.

That's because the 76ers are building such a culture of losing that it's not something they're going to shake anytime or any way soon.

After starting 0-17 last season, they are 0-18 entering a home date with the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night. A loss to the 2-14 Lakers would give Philadelphia the worst start in NBA history, a dubious honor to be sure, but one the Sixers have a backward reason to pursue.

Via conditional trade, the 76ers get the Lakers' first-round pick as long as the Lakers win enough to stay out of the top three in the draft lottery.

No matter the motivation, in the macro sense, the Sixers aren't trying anyway. (In the micro sense, they sort of try harder than anyone in the league because so many of their players don't actually deserve to be in the NBA and are desperate to show they can contribute in the league.)

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The lack of effort is more noticeable this season because the Eastern Conference has stabilized a bit, and elsewhere, other young, bad teams, such as the Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets, are giving more organized efforts now.

That's the logical course of action: to grow your talent even with small steps and teach it what winning takes.

Coming along quite nicely on that learning curve are the Utah Jazz.

The Jazz nearly ended the defending-champion Golden State Warriors' NBA-record undefeated start in Game 19 on Monday night. Even though the Jazz suffered an injury setback with top draftee Dante Exum and had to ship out another top pick in ill-fitting Enes Kanter for future draft possibilities, Utah has been building steadily.   

Jazz coach Quin Snyder said before the 106-103 loss to the Warriors: "We're not there yet. But every time we get to compete, we get to learn."

That's exactly what the 76ers aren't comprehending as they wait for the quick fix and don't try to compete. Golden State's Stephen Curry saw it similarly, saying of the young Jazz: "They've been together for a couple of years. Now that they've been together, they know how they want to play."

Snyder is actually coaching his guys to get better.

Sixers coach Brett Brown is just babysitting.

Brown's pieces don't fit anyway: Nerlens Noel's limitations are glaring when he tries to face up to the basket while Jahlil Okafor is doing his post-up thing down low—and who knows about Joel Embiid, who might fit because of his mid-range game but is spending a second season sidelined by a foot injury. 

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The hope was that the Duke-polished Okafor would add some legitimacy to the 76ers, but lately all he seems to have added is a string of incidents—from reported street fights with hecklers to speeding to using a fake ID—more befitting a frustrated kid than a maturing professional. 

Of course he's frustrated. That's what the 76ers' system breeds.

Okafor is not a bad guy, but he has gone from the national title game in the nearly big leagues of Durham, North Carolina, to a Philadelphia Division III school that's only fielding a basketball team for the potential revenue.

Okafor has no way to win anymore.

He's just a victim of the 76ers' cruel experiment that is unfair to him and even more so to Philadelphia basketball fans.

Kevin Ding is an NBA senior writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @KevinDing.