Philadelphia 76ers: Showing Improvement From Last Year?

Are the Philadelphia 76ers showing progress from year to year?

The Philadelphia 76ers rebuilding process is a bit confusing for the casual basketball fans. Everything these fans were taught that is right about sports has suddenly been deemed wrong by fans of the Sixers. Winning? We don’t want that. Losing? That’s all a part of the plan. Teammates that don’t fit together at all? That was to be expected. Getting blown out night after night? That’s cool too!

As we wait for general manager Sam Hinkie’s master plan to fall into the perfect place — possibly taking a huge step forward if the team can grab Ben Simmons or Brandon Ingram in the draft this season — we don’t necessarily look for wins from the Sixers, we look for progress. Seeing Jahlil Okafor succeed on all parts of the floor offensively and succeed moderately on defense is worth as much as a win might be to fans of other teams. Nik Stauskas showing some shooting improvement shows that the team turning another team’s trash into gold, which is encouraging to see.

But above all, even though the games might still result in losses, we want to see progress from the team. Although many of these players won’t be around for the long haul, and a large amount of them won’t be returning to the team next season, we still want to see that the rebuilding process is getting somewhere, and not at a standstill. We definitely want to be assured that the process isn’t going backwards.

For starters, let’s look at the overall records. We’re 60 games into the season for Philadelphia, and embarrassingly, they still have yet to get into double-digit wins with a record of 8-52. Looking at last season, this is definitely a fallback, as the Sixers were 13-47 by the time their 60th game had completed. What’s important to see though is that the Sixers’ had an awful time closing out last season. After that 60th game, the Sixers went 5-17 over their final 22 games, closing out their season with a 10-game losing streak. What’s good to know is that if the Sixers can win 11 of their final 22 games — which is a bit of a stretch, they would have to win one out of every two games for that to occur — they can outdo their record from last season, which was second-worst in the NBA.

More from The Sixer Sense

We must also remember that this year’s team has presented a ton of obstacles. Brett Brown has tried several lineups to figure out how to work Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor together — or in many cases, separately — and that has caused setbacks. But still, looking at the numbers, the win-loss record isn’t looking like it’s going to be an improvement.

Of course, things go deeper than just a win-loss record. The individual stats and how they have improved from the previous year are important to consider as well.

Starting off with what hasn’t improved or what has regressed, there’s a few things that make us shake our heads. The Sixers are getting to the line significantly less than last year, shooting 5.4 percent fewer free-throws per game this year than last year so far. A lot of the better teams in the NBA are good at drawing fouls and getting to the line for some easy points. Additionally, the offensive rebounding per game is down by over 20 percent, which is the biggest issue. Grabbing those second-chance points is huge for the team, and can result in many more points per game. Due to defensive rebounding being up, the total rebounding is down just 3.6 percent. The last dip down is steals, which is down by over 10 percent.

Transitioning from the negatives, there’s a lot of positive we can focus on as well.

Next: Former Players Finding Homes in the NBA

Field goal percentage, 3-point percentage and free-throw percentage, are all up just slightly. The team has done great getting blocks this season, and as a result the blocks per game have gone up by nearly 10 percent per game. Perhaps the most important improvement has been the points per game, going up by 5 percent so far this season. That has been helped by Jahlil Okafor and his 17-plus points per game that he’s contributing as a rookie this season.

There’s a lot we could nitpick about this season, but in all reality, it should be the last year that we’re seeing some awful, awful basketball played in south Philly. Let’s focus on those really encouraging increased numbers this season despite a roster that doesn’t fit together at all.