Tonight, with Joel Embiid and company in Toronto, there will be a Philadelphia-sized elephant presiding over events at Scotiabank Arena. In the final game of the Eastern Conference Semi-finals last season, Kawhi Leonard’s Game 7 buzzer-beater humbled the super confident 76ers and had American sports media pundits scrambling for a narrative. The most common conclusion in some corners? The 76ers were only four bounces away from an NBA title, and the Toronto Raptors are the luckiest SOBs in all of team sports.
But did luck alone deliver the Raptors their Game 7 win or were they destined for it?