From an outsider’s perspective, it’s hard to understand how a team that won just four of its final 36 games in 2013-14 and began this season with a 17-game losing streak could remain motivated and stick together as a group. But the Sixers have done more than just tread water this year; they’ve begun to swim their way back to shore.

“I’m asked so often about the situation that we’re in getting people used to losing all the time… And it’s just so far from the truth,” said head coach Brett Brown Saturday, after his team’s third win in four outings and seventh in its last 19. “We try to stay pretty grounded and understand what we’re all about and what our purpose is.”

For the youngest team in the history of the NBA, that purpose is development.

But what’s often lost upon those passing judgments from afar is that development encompasses much more than Michael Carter-Williams’ jump shot, or K.J. McDaniels’ post game, or even the acquisition and cultivation of assets. It’s about growing this collection of first-, second-, and third-year players into a cohesive team, one that can mature together and one day compete well into May and hopefully June.

Wins help, of course. They’re the carrot at the end of the stick Brown uses to keep his players motivated. But with an average point differential of just 3.6 in the team’s seven victories, all decided by single digits, each one serves as a valuable learning experience.

“Having these guys learn how to win, and close out a game, and deal with situations, and execute things that drawn up on the side, there are so many benefits that come even with the situation that we’re in with learning how to win,” Brown said. “I don’t want this program to be run from the top down. I don’t want them to have to look at me all the time [for guidance]. It has to be from them up. This is their team, it’s their culture, and it’s their set of behaviors.”

And while Brett Brown has been a rock for the Sixers throughout their careful and deliberate route to franchise reconstruction, his players have accepted his challenge of self-sufficiency.

On Wednesday, the Sixers were handed a 97-77 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks at home. Although the defeat came on the heels of a tight victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers two nights prior, that game had been preceded by a stretch of five consecutive road losses that averaged a nearly 25-point differential.

The players got together after that game and talked candidly. They agreed that they’d slipped into poor tendencies – that the ball was sticking too much, that they were forcing shots too often at the rim, that their transition defense wasn’t up to par.

They came out two nights later and defeated a likely playoff-bound Nets team 90-88 in Brooklyn, notching 22 assists to 14 turnovers after logging just 14 with 21 giveaways against the Bucks. In Saturday’s 93-92 home win over the Indiana Pacers, the Sixers dished out 21 assists and committed 17 turnovers.

“We had a really, really slow start, but we’ve come together and have been able to build some chemistry,” said Michael Carter-Williams, who assisted Nerlens Noel’s game-winner against the Nets on Friday and hit one of his own Saturday against Indiana. “We trust each other in these moments. Whether it’s Tony [Wroten] scoring a basket, Nerlens scoring a basket, whether it’s myself, Robert [Covington] hitting a big shot, Luc [Mbah a Moute]. I think we trust each other and put each other in good positions.”

That chemistry, trust, brotherly love, whatever you want to call it was on full display after Saturday’s victory. Nerlens Noel joyfully tossing the ball high into the air as the clock struck all zeros, Joel Embiid running from his seat on the bench to center court to congratulate his teammates, Michael Carter-Williams squeezing between two members of the dance team to clap and sing along to Here Come The Sixers as a raucous crowd of over 17,000 fans showed their appreciation…

The losses haven’t made the team apathetic to the results of games; they’ve only made them hungrier. Just watch the way this group jells and the way the Philly fans support this underdog squad:

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Doesn’t feel like a losing culture, does it?