NBA practices open next week, and hopes are high in cities all over the league. But I'm not here to talk about hope. This is about reality. This is about maturity. It's about about staring hope in the face, and answering back with pragmatism. It's about burning down the forest so that the heat can release the seedlings of a lush coniferous future. This is about tanking.
Tanking has gotten a bad name over the past few years, and I don't like it. We shouldn't let the past few years of Sixers chaos besmirch a proud lineage of strategic and well-placed sucking throughout NBA history.