ack in October I wrote a post detailing that in the first month or so of the 2015-16 NBA season Philadunkia nation would have to exercise a significant amount of patience with this 76ers team and “the process”. In that post, I theorized that because of injuries, learning to play together and an unfriendly opening month of the schedule that the Sixers would struggle mightily out of the gate and cause us to nearly lose our minds.

The opening month of the season went as I predicted as the Sixers played energetic and entertaining basketball (for the most part), but posted a 1-18 record. The problems I listed back in October were a big part of the slow start to the season. However a slew of unexpected issues also came to the surface in November and December and now those issues have turned the Sixers (1-30) into a pathetic, unwatchable team on another 12 game losing streak (FYI…average margin of defeat in last ten defeats is 18 pts.).

After the jump I’ll look take a look at the unexpected issues that have pulled the 2015-16 Sixers down to a depressing depth.

Nik Stauskas: Outside of Jahlil Okafor, “Sauce Castillo” was the most anticipated off-season addition by Sam Hinkie. At the time of the trade, one of my NBA contacts described the Stauskas trade as a “solid move” by the Sixers that should help solve, “some of their shooting woes”. Another contact called the Stauskas addition “a step in the right direction”. Unfortunately those predictions have not become reality. Stauskas’ career here in Philly began slowly thanks to a stint on the sidelines with a leg injury. Once the shooting guard returned to action, he seemed to quickly reach ‘game shape’ and get accustom to the Sixers offense. In early November Stauskas was inserted into the first-five and did show some flashes of solid play while averaging 15.2 ppg. over a 4-game stretch. However, that positive stretch did not last for long as Stauskas scored in double-digits just two more times last month after November 7th. He eventually lost his starting job, has reached double figures only once in December and is currently shooting 28% from deep on the season. Stauskas has received limited minutes in the 7-6’s last three games and has not attempted a field goal in any of those runs. Needless to say Nik’s struggles have created a large hole in Brett Brown’s starting lineup and the negative impact on the team’s ability to stretch the floor with 3-point shooters cannot be understated.

The Defense: I’m not sure how to remotely soften my thoughts on the 76ers at this end of the court, so I simply won’t. The Sixers are so ridiculously bad on defense that it has become comical. Outside of Noel, Grant and Covington no one on this team has a clue how to play defense at the NBA level. The perimeter D is non-existent and on the interior the Sixer bigs (excluding Noel) are helpless. The stats for the 76ers on defense are simply too embarrassing to list here, so I will simply give you the eye test breakdown. None of Brown’s perimeter defenders can play on-ball defense worth a damn. The perimeter players also can’t close out on three point shooters. The weak side rotations at the back end of the defense are slow or sometimes never happen at all. This team struggles badly to guard the pick-n-roll. In the post, Sixer bigs get pushed around like CYO players. Finally, ROY candidate Okafor has proven to be a major liability on defense. After taking strides forward on defense during 2014-15, the Sixers have fallen flat at this end of the court in 2015-16.

Guard Play: TJ McConnell, Isaiah Canaan, Nik Stauskas, JaKaar Sampson, Hollis Thompson and more recently Kendall Marshall as well as Tony Wroten — not one of them can shoot a lick, play any defense worth a damn or protect the ball. We just discussed defense and coming up next I’ll talk about turnovers, so in this paragraph I’ll concentrate on back-court shooting. It’s actually disturbing to watch just how many open looks every game this group is unable to connect on. As a group the Sixer guards are shooting 21.6% from deep and boast a TS% of 49.7. At 68.9, Steph Curry owns the highest rated TS% for a guard who has played in at least 25 games. A little further down the list (but still way ahead of any Sixers guard) is Ramon Sessions of the Wizards who holds a TS% of 58.5 this season. Yeah, I know Sessions is a random name, but I just thought you would be interested to know that the journeyman point man has a better TS% than any guard on the current 76er roster.

Turnovers: The guards deserve a great deal of the blame is this department as well, but no one on this roster is innocent here. The Sixers are averaging a League worst 18.6 turnovers per night (28 last night vs. Memphis). That’s an increase over last season’s unforgettable 16.9 average and 2013-14’s 16.4 turnovers per game. Both numbers ranked the 76ers dead last in the Association at taking care of the rock in those seasons. According to basketball-reference.com, since 1990 only 8 teams have finished an NBA season with a per game turnover average of 18+ per night. Back on November 18th, the Sixers coughed up 31 turnovers to the Pacers. That insane number is the most turnovers an NBA team has committed since the GSW turned the ball over 31 times back in November of the 2000-01 season. Jah (2.5 turnovers per game) is second behind only Emanuel Mudiay (4.0) among rookies with the highest TO per game rate and Mudiay is the primary ball handler for the Denver Nuggets. No wonder Larry Brown thinks he could fix the Sixers in 5 minutes.

Just for comparison’s sake, in Doug C’s last season (2012-13) the Sixers ultra conservative, low risk offense turned the ball over only 12 times per night (2nd best in the League that year). Admittedly, DC’s final Sixer team was boring as hell to watch on offense and the franchise was lost in NBA mediocrity, but I thought it was an interesting note.

Drama: Drama was an element that impressively had been absent from the first two years of Sam Hinkie “trust the process” rebuilding effort. However, in 2015-16 there is drama in bunches. Brett Brown, the 76er players, Sam Hinkie and Josh Harris can put on the happy face for the media and keep spewing the company line to anyone that will listen, but the drama surrounding the 76ers in the last month is having an impact on this team. First there was the ‘Joel Embiid has an attitude problem and binges on pitchers of Shirley Temple’ drama. Next came Jah’s series of off-the-court transgressions. Of course Brett Brown was inappropriately left to deal with Jah’s drama solo, which created even more drama. Since that 10-day stretch over Thanksgiving, Brown has appeared burnt out to and simply weary at times. Soon after Jah’s TMZ Sports appearances Adam Silver was so kind as to “introduce” Josh Harris to legendary NBA front office type Jerry Colangelo. It didn’t take much time before Colangelo was named Chairman of Basketball Operations for the 76ers, a title that seems to place a layer on top of Hinkie. The front office drama quickly extended the coaching staff when Colangleo added his old friend Mike D’Antoni to the bench. D’Antoni will be viewed by many as an informant for Colangelo who will continue to reside in Arizona while presumably running the Sixers basketball operations. If you like drama, the Sixers have you covered, so stay tuned.

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I thought in year three of “the process” this team would finally take a noticeable step forward. Instead the Sixers have taken 3 steps backwards. As we all know hitting complete and utter rock bottom was part of Hinkie’s master plan. It appears the plan took a little longer than Sam’s analytics predicted. One thing is certain, “the process” is more painful to watch this year than I expected.

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