Philadelphia 76ers: The 10 craziest episodes in franchise history
Nov. 11, 2012: Franchise center Andrew Bynum injures knee bowling
As a Sixers fan we’ve seen some bizarre stories develop surrounding the team in recent memory. Andrew Bynum is certainly one of those stories, and it just frustrated fans as well as the Philadelphia 76ers organization.
Aug. 10, 2012 is the day in history where fans are both regretful and thankful of the Bynum trade occurring. The Process came out of this epically awful deal but, before we knew what that was, we had to witness the laughable year Bynum had with the team.
Remember, Bynum arrived as The Savior who would lead the Sixers back to title contention.
It seemed like a great match at the time: a 24-year old center coming off a season with averages of 19 points, 12 rebounds and 56 percent shooting with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Except he came into the team with major knee arthritis that got worse during his tenure in Philly. Bynum’s knee troubles were the warm up for Embiid’s journey to health I guess, except Embiid. has always come back to play following his problems.
With no knowledge of The Process or Joel Embiid, Bynum’s injury saga destroyed all expectations for the 2012-13 NBA season. The entire front office was sacked for this debacle and Sam Hinkie was brought in to run basketball operations.
The wait for Bynum to return to the court never ended that season, as he never played a game. Interestingly enough, Bynum was making news for everything but progress on his knees. The many different hair stylings of Bynum made front and center appearances. Vague answers on his progression towards a clean bill of health occurred often.
That just gave Sixers fans leeway to scratch their heads and wonder what is this guy’s deal?
Better yet, that question was asked again later on that year due to Bynum’s affinity for bowling.
Bynum went out bowling that season and re-injured his left knee while doing so. The incident made fans angry due to the obscurity of the injury. Bynum decided to bowl while recovering from knee arthritis at 7-feet tall — sounds logical, right?
Bynum tried to spin his situation during the time by saying it could’ve while dunking. But that doesn’t matter to us fans, what does matter is that it happened while bowling. Bynum should’ve been rehabbing or relaxing, not working on his game for the PBA.
Sixers CEO Scott O’Neil even apologized to fans for their expectations of Bynum being the savior of the franchise. This trade was so frustrating to fans by this point, so the CEO voluntarily apologized.
That’s the bizarre cherry on top of this story, one of the front office executives felt it was such a mistake in the moment to apologize to the fans. A mind-blowing gesture if you ask me because front offices never apologize when making the wrong move.
On the bright side of the Bynum deal, it prepared all of us for ‘The Process’ and for dealing with not the healthiest Joel Embiid. Knee problems, setbacks, waiting and more waiting is Andrew Bynum’s Philadelphia 76ers career in a nutshell.
At least now we can all laugh at ourselves and that situation because of how far the team has moved passed it.
As far as we know, Bynum is the only NBA player to suffer a major injury due to bowling.