The hiatus may benefit the Philadelphia 76ers more than any other team.
Last summer, the Philadelphia 76ers were billed as top-tier contenders in a wide-open Eastern Conference. One season removed from Kawhi Leonard’s infamous quadruple-doink, the perception of the Sixers has changed drastically.
The Sixers are no longer favorites in the East. That label belongs to Milwaukee and Toronto. The Sixers are in sixth place, and as the NBA gears up for its Orlando re-start, many are concerned the loss of home-court advantage will effectively end Philadelphia’s title bid.
However, there is one projection model that casts a much more optimistic light on the Sixers: FiveThirtyEight’s R.A.P.T.O.R. That’s right. FiveThirtyEight’s (R)obust (A)lgorithm using (P)layer (T)racking and (O)n/Off (R)atings qualifies the Sixers as genuine contenders.
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Per FiveThirtyEight’s most recently updated model, the Sixers have a 33% chance of making the Finals — the fourth-highest mark in basketball, behind only the Lakers, Clippers, and Bucks. They consequently have a 14% chance of winning the Finals, also the fourth-highest mark.
This gives Philadelphia higher odds than Boston (21%), Houston (12%), and Toronto (9%) when it comes to making the Finals. Obviously this is only one metric, and I would personally describe a Sixers > Raptors take as borderline foolish, but it is still telling. The metrics clearly like Philadelphia’s amalgamation of talent, not to mention its easy schedule to finish the season.
Per FiveThirtyEight’s Neil Paine:
"In terms of Finals odds, the biggest beneficiaries of the new format are the aforementioned Sixers, who gained 7 percentage points compared with their standing in March. That is essentially owed to an easy schedule and Simmons’s return to health. The third-year former No. 1 overall pick is one of the league’s most polarizing players, but RAPTOR still considers him extremely valuable (with the 30th-best per-possession rating of anyone logging at least 1,500 minutes)."
The Sixers will have a fully healthy roster for essentially the first time all season. Joel Embiid is in the best shape of his career. Ben Simmons has been nursed back to full health. Even Al Horford said he feels better than he did before the hiatus.
Zhaire Smith is a small omission to the Sixers’ bill of clean health, but he’s a marginal presence who has little bearing on Philadelphia’s title odds. This is a healthy team, and it’s clear FiveThirtyEight’s metric takes that into account.
Paine also mentions Ben Simmons as a particularly valuable cog. He catches a lot of flack in the NBA mediascape, but Simmons is arguably a top-20 player in basketball — a player of unrivaled defensive versatility and someone who generates more 3-pointers than anyone in basketball, even without shooting jumpers himself.
I’m not sure I buy FiveThirtyEight’s glowing endorsement of the Sixers’ contending status. But it doesn’t mean nothing, and there’s credence to the idea that Philadelphia easy schedule, improved health, and increased time to gel could lead to greater success down the stretch.
The Sixers are, above all else, talented. It’s not unreasonable to peg them as not only sleepers, but genuine contenders, even if FiveThirtyEight’s projections seem a tad overzealous. In under a month’s time, we’ll start to see how accurate this model looks.