Philadelphia 76ers Bold Predictions: More Wins Than Knicks

The Philadelphia 76ers will end this season with more wins than the New York Knicks, despite attractive additions to the Knicks’ roster this offseason.

Albert Einstein is credited with saying “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. So, by definition, the New York Knicks are insane as a franchise.

Time and time again, they overpay a washed up, past-their-prime has-been (see: Carmelo Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire, Stephon Marbury, Jerome James) to change the direction of the franchise.

And since the start of the 2000-01 season, this method hasn’t exactly worked in their favor (they’ve had just three winning seasons and won just one playoff series since then).

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In typical Knicks fashion, they went ahead and did the same exact thing yet again this offseason by bringing in past-their-prime players Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah. What’s most insane about these additions: Knicks fans actually seem optimistic about the upcoming season, which is absolutely mind-boggling to me.

Why, you ask?

For starters, Rose isn’t even an afterthought of the player he was when he won the NBA MVP award in the 2010-11 season. He was 44th among point guards with a 13.52 player efficiency rating (PER) last year, behind guys like Tim Frazier (13.90, 38th), Jeremy Lin (13.80, 40th), Michael Carter-Williams (tied for 34th, 13.98) and Donald Sloan (tied for 34th, 13.98). None of the aforementioned guys are good NBA players, and statistically, Rose was worse than them last year.

Now, entering his age-28 season, Rose has an extensive injury history and hasn’t played more than 66 games since 2011. His experience under the knife has negatively impacted his explosiveness on the court as well (he dunked just once this past season).

Rose isn’t as athletic as he once was and that will hurt him defensively; he still can’t shoot, either (30.2-percent 3-point shooter, 29.3-percent last season).

Then, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse for the Knicks, they went and gave Joakim Noah a four-year, $72 million contract.

Noah was 51st among centers with a 14.08 PER last season behind Timofey Mozgov (50th, 14.63), Kosta Koufos (47th, 15.15) and Tyson Chandler (49th, 14.74). Noah, who will turn 32 this season, saw a dip in every major statistic this past year (points, assists, steals, blocks and rebounds) and his free throw percentage (48.9%) and field goal percentage (38.3%) were both career-lows.

New York also got rid of Robin Lopez, a 28-year old who was 23rd in the NBA among centers with a 17.66 PER in order to bring Noah and Rose to The Big Apple.

Noah and Rose were both on the Chicago Bulls (42 wins) last season and (just like the Knicks and their 32 wins) failed to reach the 2016 playoffs.

Basically, the Knicks (who, again, won just 32 games last season) took two of the Bulls’ most washed-up players and have yet again crossed their fingers that maybe it’ll help them win this time around.

But the fact of the matter is this: if you want to win in the NBA, adding bad players to a bad team isn’t the way to go.

The Philadelphia 76ers, on the other hand, got significantly better all around this offseason.

Last year, they had guys like Ish Smith and T.J. McConnell running the point for the majority of the year. Smith is now on the Detroit Pistons and McConnell will likely be the third point guard option, behind players like Sergio Rodriguez, Jerryd Bayless and even top-pick Ben Simmons.

At the two-guard, the Sixers will likely start newly-signed Gerald Henderson, who was 29th in the league among shooting guard with a 12.97 PER. During the 2015-16 season, Hollis Thompson was the Sixers’ best shooting guard with a 9.24 PER and Nik Stauskas was right behind him at 9.22 (66th and 67th in the league, respectively). Henderson, though not a great player, is a significant upgrade at the two.

Plus, the additions of Simmons, Dario Saric and Joel Embiid to go along with the steadily-improving Jahlil Okafor, Jerami Grant and Nerlens Noel should help Philadelphia more than double its 10-game win total from last year.

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With the Sixers’ new offseason additions and their already young core, I personally project them to finish with 30 wins come the end of the 2016-17 season. That’s not exactly a good win total, but it’s a severe improvement from last year.

And it will almost certainly be more victories than the Knicks who managed to worsen their 32-win team from a year ago. I don’t see any way they win more than 27 or 28 games.

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Once again, the Knicks’ offseason additions will almost certainly impact the team in a negative way. Facts back it up, as does the franchises history of overpaying players that are past their prime.

To reiterate, you can’t repeatedly do the same thing and expect different results, but that’s what the Knicks have done yet again.

And that’s insane. Who am I to argue with Einstein?

2017 Bold Predictions: 76ers Will Have More Wins Than Knicks

By Kevin Kolodziej | Aug 24, 2016

The Philadelphia 76ers will end this season with more wins than the New York Knicks, despite attractive additions to the Knicks’ roster this offseason.

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