Stakes Are High in New York Knicks-Philadelphia 76ers Tank-off
Bottoming out is often a lonely endeavor in the NBA. But neither the New York Knicks nor Philadelphia 76ers are going it alone.
Designed demolition has become an NBA art form, the process of which is punctuated by the wracking and wringing of unbounded losing, followed by the blind belief that what lies ahead is bigger and better.
Call it rebuilding. Coin it tanking. Deem it smart or simpleminded. Whatever it is, the Knicks and Sixers are going through it together.
When they meet on Wednesday night in Philadelphia, it will not be just another tilt between foes. It will be as equals investing in similar visions, their execution poles apart, their end goals a spitting image of each other.
Different Triggers, Same Reactions
The motivation behind the Sixers' and Knicks' continued explorations of rock bottom came at different times and in different ways.
An attempt to end a years-long run of mediocrity went horribly astray for the Sixers in 2012. After making it past the first round of the playoffs just once since 2004, they bet big on Andrew Bynum, an All-Star center brimming with untapped potential.
Trading Andre Iguodala, Nikola Vucevic, Moe Harkless and a first-round pick was a steep, yet justifiable, price to pay for someone supposed to help the franchise regain prominence it had not enjoyed since the Allen Iverson era. But the injury-prone Bynum would never play for the Sixers.
In came general manager Sam Hinkie that spring after a 34-win campaign, his actions swift, his presence felt, his intentions clear.
Jrue Holiday, Evan Turner and Thaddeus Young have since been shipped out in favor of better lottery odds. Hinkie is also responsible for landing Michael Carter-Williams, Nerlens Noel, Joel Embiid and Dario Saric.
Embiid and Saric, like Noel in 2013-14, won't log a minute for the Sixers during their official rookie campaigns. The pick Hinkie nabbed in the Holiday deal was also leveraged to land Saric and re-acquire the first-rounder Philadelphia sent to Orlando in 2012.
Wrote Shaun Powell for NBA.com:
"The goal is pretty clear: prepare for the future at the expense of today. Why tie up money on a veteran past his prime for maybe four additional wins? The Sixers don't want to make a financial or Draft mistake that could cause even bigger headaches. By summer, they could have six recent first-rounders on the roster and a ton of salary cap space, too.
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Head coach Brett Brown, a Gregg Popovich disciple, has been charged with bridging the gap between Hinkie's draft-dependent plan and its uncertain end in the meantime.
Second-round and undrafted prospects—K.J. McDaniels, Robert Covington, etc.—have been given relatively free rein as the team cycles through players, evaluates its top guns (Carter-Williams, Noel) and bides time until the lottery.
Not surprisingly, the Sixers are a league-worst 27-96 with Hinkie at the helm and are on pace to notch the fifth-worst offensive rating in NBA history this season. The lone comfort, if there's one at all, remains the idea that this is all part of a necessary process.
No such comfort has been afforded to the Knicks. They, unlike the Sixers, have been thrust into this web of losing rather abruptly and are still coming to terms with their situation.
It wasn't two years ago the Knicks ended 2012-13 with 54 wins and the Eastern Conference's second-best record. Similar to the Sixers, they tried pushing the bill by trading for Andrea Bargnani that offseason, no doubt attempting to account for the absences of Jason Kidd, Kurt Thomas and Rasheed Wallace—sage veterans who allowed unprecedented calm to wash over New York.
Last season's team quickly established itself as a demonstrative disappointment in comparison. Bargnani missed 40 games, the Knicks offense proved better off without him and a late push for a playoff berth fell short.
With Carmelo Anthony speeding toward free agency, the Knicks entered that summer with president Phil Jackson as their primary building block. He hired Derek Fisher, unloaded Raymond Felton—at the expense of Tyson Chandler—and re-signed Anthony, but the victories stopped there.
| Knicks | 6-36 | 30 | 102.1 | 26 | 111.7 | 28 | -8.8 | 28 |
| Sixers | 8-33 | 28 | 93.0 | 30 | 106.2 | 15 | -12.7 | 30 |
Dwindling postseason hopes were killed off early, and the Knicks have since entered tear-down mode. J.R Smith and Iman Shumpert are gone, and Jose Calderon may not be far behind, per CBS Sports' Ken Berger.
Now, having adjusted to the haplessness of this season, it's the Knicks—not the Sixers—dwelling at the very bottom of the NBA.
Separate Climbs
Reversing present misfortune is the end game for both the Knicks and Sixers. They're just going about their turnaround in dissimilar fashions.
Both are clearly after this summer's top draft pick. New York holds a 2.5-game lead over Philadelphia for the Association's worst record, so valuable pingpong balls are at stake Wednesday night and through the rest of this season.
But there are more important things than pingpong balls.
Owning the worst record doesn't guarantee a No. 1 pick, for starters. Last place has a 25 percent chance of winning the top selection. The last team to snare the No. 1 spot after having the worst regular-season record was the Orlando Magic more than a decade ago (2004).
Only four times since the lottery's 1985 inception has the last-place squad actually earned the No. 1 pick. Eight of the last 10 recipients have actually had the fourth-best odds or worse of winning it. So while losing in excess is an attempt to game the system, it's hardly goof-proof.
Building a foundation that outlasts a reliance on losing is the ultimate goal. And, as shaky as they are, the Sixers have one in place.
Not to say it's perfect. Reigning Rookie of the Year Carter-Williams is on the chopping block, according to SportsNation's Chad Ford, and Noel's frustrations with the Sixers' model and play boiled over after Monday's loss to Washington, per the Daily News' Bob Cooney:
"Noel on Wizards: "they are an unselfish team. They care about each other more than they do themselves." Nerlens not a happy camper.
— Bob Cooney (@BobCooney76) January 19, 2015"
Still, despite the current climate, the Sixers are sifting through a host of young prospects, many or all of whom figure into their future.
They already have Carter-Williams, Noel and McDaniels, and in due time they will add Embiid and Saric. They also own the rights to Miami's top-10 protected first-rounder this year, per RealGM. That's in addition to having their own (likely) top-five pick and plenty of cap flexibility.
Two years from now, the Sixers could be a drastically improved team, fresh off a series of free-agency signings and draft-day hits. It's not a certainty, but there's value in knowing part or most of that core is on the roster now, already in place.
The Knicks are chasing something different altogether. The promise of landing Duke's Jahlil Okafor or Kentucky's Karl Towns in the draft looms large, but they're preparing for a more immediate about-face.
Cap flexibility has been prioritized over everything. The Smith and Shumpert trade was a blatant salary dump, and any Calderon deal would be along the same lines. Though they do have prospects in Cleanthony Early, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Langston Galloway to scout, none of their developing assets are possible cornerstones.
What the Knicks have is free agency, and along with it the belief that seasoned stars can be sold on what has been put in place.
Which, as Bleacher Report's Sean Hojnacki observes, isn't much:
"Of course, New York City is an attractive metropolis that affords a high quality of life for wealthy athletes. It also provides a higher market profile, which can bring in lucrative endorsement deals.
But the city cannot lure top talent by itself, and the Knicks have little to offer other than an aging Carmelo and the ardent hope that Jackson, an inexperienced executive, can engineer a championship roster once freed from the yoke of preexisting bad deals, particularly the expiring contracts of Stoudemire and Andrea Bargnani.
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Where the Sixers have been prepared to come along gradually, grinding out victories in the draft, the Knicks need to make an instantaneous jump. Their plunge down the standings is only valuable this season, first-round pick in hand. Next year's selection—which Denver has the right to swap with its own—will wind up in Toronto as part of the Bargnani deal.
Extensive time, then, is yet another luxury the Knicks don't have. Anthony is already on the wrong side of 30, and their draft well remains dry.
Keeping company with the Sixers has its merits, but only for now. The Knicks will, at some point, need to eschew patience and process for palpable progress—a point they'll reach the moment 2014-15 ends.
Shared Hope
For all the differences in strategy and cause, the Knicks and Sixers are strikingly similar. Both are traveling down a precarious, loss-loaded path having blatantly valued tomorrow over today.
More importantly, both enter Wednesday's matchup hoping an ill-fated—albeit devised—nose dive soon subsides.
"The fans are going through it, we are going through it. [But] it gets better," Anthony said after the Knicks ended their franchise-worst 16-game losing streak, via ESPN New York's Ian Begley. "I believe that."
Faith is paramount to both the Knicks' and Sixers' rebuilds. The rewards of either collapse are not assured, after all.
There is only this belief that their mutual stint at rock bottom foretells a rise worth the free falls they're enduring now.
*Statistics courtesy of Basketball-Reference and are accurate as of games played Jan. 19, 2014.
