Well, it was worth it. At long last, it was worth it. The two forfeited seasons, the lottery picks spent on bum legs, the young players traded for assets, the assets traded for lesser assets, the draft lottery letting the Heat and Lakers keep their picks instead of shipping them to Philly, the TED talks, the biomechanical efficiency-monitoring anklets or whatever ... The System worked.


It worked because, tonight, the NBA draft lottery gave the 76ers the third selection in the 2015 NBA draft. And when general manager Sam Hinkie trades whoever he picks in that spot, 18 months into that player’s career, for two 2019 Knicks second-rounders, and packages those second-rounders with Robert Covington and Joel Embiid for a 4-foot-9 D-League guard and a top-6 protected 2020 first-round pick from the Cavaliers, and waives the guard, and uses his own 2020 first-rounder to draft a promising North Carolina shot-blocker with no spinal column, and trades the 2020 Cavaliers pick for two 2021 second-rounders, and trades one of those 2021 second-rounders for the right to waive Marcin Gortat (for some sweet cap savings!) and uses the other to draft Niklyshlyz Krygzyrgyshysvylgis, an enigmatic stretch-four from Rzydrydnia with no interest in coming to the United States, and packages the spineless North Carolina shot-blocker and the rights to Krygzyrgyshvysvylgis for Toronto’s 17th man and the right to swap picks in 2023, and trades the 17th man for the 58th pick in 2024, and uses that pick to draft Niklyshlyz Krygzyrgyshysvylgis’s little brother Zbndnvditz—man, just imagine the sweet future protected first-round pick he will be able to get for that guy.


The Sixers will win the 2097 NBA Finals.

Photo via AP