Michael Carter-Williams made his season debut against the Dallas Mavericks Thursday night, hot off the heels of a column in The Players’ Tribune titled “Don’t Talk To Me About Tanking”, in which he called out the media for pushing the narrative of the current team-building strategy in Philadelphia:
In the middle of the playoff race, a race we were decidedly not in, it seemed like the entire media spotlight was on us. And trust me, I get it. We had lost 26 games in a row. Of course, our roster had lost a combined 200-plus games to injury and we had used more than 20 different players in the lineup since opening night. That didn’t seem to be a part of the conversation. All anybody was talking about was “tanking.”
We knew it was going to be a circus when ESPN flew in Stephen A. Smith to Philadelphia for the 27th game against Detroit. In the locker room before shootaround, we got swarmed by reporters. You could barely move around the room. Somebody actually asked, “So how does it feel to be a part of the most losing team in NBA history?” Which was really funny because we hadn’t even played the game yet. Everybody just expected us to lose and set the record.
Unfortunately for MCW and the Sixers, they followed that column up with a 53-point thrashing at the hand of the Dallas Mavericks, merely hours after it was published. The game should have gone to a running clock midway through, as Dallas held a 45-10 advantage at one point, before cooling off to only lead by 44 points at halftime. The Sixers racked up 27 turnovers (against 9 assists), with MCW leading the way with six cough-ups. Yeah, it was that bad. In case you’re wondering, 53-point wins don’t happen often in the NBA. The last time a team lost by 53 or more was in 2011, and it’s only happened three times in the last 20 years. The players, including all those no-names on the Sixers’ roster, are (believe it or not) too good to let it happen.
But, hey, when your front office is actively trying to make you terrible, anything is possible.
[ESPN, photo via Glenn James/Getty]
