Maybe now Sam Hinkie can gain back those 20 pounds.
The Philadelphia 76ers avoided matching their own benchmark for NBA ineptitude on Tuesday night, clobbering the depleted New Orleans Pelicans for their 10th win of the season.
The 1972-73 Sixers went 9-73, a win total that, 43 years later, remains the only single-digit mark ever recorded in an 82-game season. This year's iteration of the team started an unthinkable 1-30 and came into Tuesday's game at 9-68, five losses from tying the ignominious record.
But against a Pelicans squad that's already shut down virtually its entire opening-night roster for the season, they made certain they won't have to be mentioned in the same breath as that '72-73 squad. Behind a monster performance from reserve forward Carl Landry, the Sixers romped to a 107-93 win.
Landry, who spent the first half of his first season in Philadelphia on the shelf due to wrist surgery, bullied the Pelicans' overmatched front line all night, banging in the post and getting second-chance looks, hitting mid-range jumpers off the pick-and-pop, and even extending his range out to the 3-point line. He finished with 22 points on 9-of-10 shooting (2-of-2 from beyond the arc), nine rebounds (four on the offensive glass), and two steals in 26 minutes of action.
So grateful were Sixers fans for the win, that they serenaded Landry with M-V-P chants.
He was flanked on the bench unit by Nik Stauskas and Hollis Thompson, who combined to score 26 points, dish 10 assists, and shoot 5-of-9 from deep. The typically turnover-prone Sixers coughed the ball up just eight times (they average more than twice that many).
In any event, despite celebrating like they'd clinched a playoff berth, the Sixers remain one of the worst teams in history. Their .128 winning percentage places them ahead of only the aforementioned team of infamy and the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats (7-59).
On the bright side, those Bobcats were a playoff team just two years later. It took the '72-73 Sixers three years to make the playoffs, and just four to reach the NBA Finals. In other words, bleak as things may appear for Philadelphia right now, good things may be on the horizon.
