Anderson: It’s Really Easy To Despise The 76ers, Huh?

By Ty Anderson, 985TheSportsHub.com

Much to the chagrin of Sean Sylver and the Celtics-Sixers rivalries of yesteryear, I'm sure, I didn't think that the Philadelphia 76ers were going to be all that worthy of my hate. They were a young team with confidence that seemed largely due to their naivety of the situation of playoff basketball. I remember when the Celtics were that kind of team (you could make the case that they still kind of are, especially this year), so it wasn't hard to find that tolerable.

But man, it's taken just four games for me to come out and admit that I could not have been more wrong on that front.

It's become almost impossible not to utterly despise this team.

Let's start where it all began -- and that's The Process.

The Process was how the Sixers became even somewhat good again. And in layman's terms, The Process was a form of self-sabotage that saw the Sixers win just 75 games over a four-season stretch. Over that span, the Sixers never won more than 28 games, and never won fewer than 10 contests. A professional basketball team went out there and won just 10 games in an 82-game season. Impressive because it's so embarrassing, perhaps, but not something you should necessarily tout as a success given the fact that most teams tend to win about 10-to-15 games by accident in a normal season. You honestly would've thought that they were in a heated 82-game rivalry with the Harlem Globetrotters.

But The Process, as it became known, allowed the Sixers to draft Joel Embiid (more on him in a bit), Ben Simmons (and more on him in a bit), and Markelle Fultz (I'm honestly not sure who that is because it's been four games and we still haven't seen this player on the court). The Sucky Sixers also swung and missed throughout their stretch, with draft whiffs such as Michael Carter-Williams (the first piece of The Process!), Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel.

Knowing how they've swung this, they'll probably tell us that drafting these duds was also part of The Process.

Speaking honestly as a sports fan, cheering losses seems like the lowest possible point of any fandom, and I appreciate the Brooklyn Nets for their sacrifice to prevent me from having to resort to such garbage tactics. But embracing the fact that you essentially lost on purpose for years, parading it all the while (confetti included), and then still leading your playoff march with it as your slogan when you're finally somewhat respectable as a playoff threat?

Yuck, I'll take a crab juice.

...But then I got some real exposure to the players involved in said Process.

Down three games to none in this series, Embiid decided to pick Game 4 as the best time to start talking trash. It began with the Batman wearing a mask three sizes too small for his face tried ripping the ball out of Terry Rozier's hands after a whistle. It continued when he tried to tell the Celtics' Marcus Morris that he was in his head, to which Morris simply flashed a 3-0 with his fingers, reminding Embiid where his team was at.

But, wait, before we move forward, I just want to make sure I'm recalling everything correctly here.

Embiid's Sixers, at that point still without a win in this series (they now trail just 3-1 opposed to 3-0), decided to tell Morris that he was in his head. The man that missed the first two seasons of his NBA career and is basically made of construction paper is trying to tell the dude that almost picked up an assault charge this past summer that he's in his head? Marcus Morris is the kind of person that I'm pretty sure would fight a brick wall if it looked at him funny. "But Ty, brick walls can't look at people." Exactly! An unhinged maniac you love to have on your team, Morris is a touch crazy, and probably the last dude anybody should try to pick a fight with if they want to enjoy their time on this planet.

It's not a fight that Embiid truly wants, and really speaks to the Sixers' once-adorable lack of awareness of this stage.

That swagger is cool when you're posting some 30-15 lines in the regular season. But your team has blown countless leads in this series alone, you're coached by a total boob that I'm convinced routinely forgets that he's an NBA coach and is thus allowed to do things an NBA coach does, and not even your Game 4 victory was convincing.

If there was a time to run your mouth with 'I'm in your head' nonsense, it was when you beat Miami Heat in the first round. Congratulations on that, by the way, it was extremely impressive to watch your team beat up on Dwyane Wade when he's finally the same age as the average Florida citizen. I haven't seen something like that since Pedro vs. Zimmer.

Behind Embiid, there's Simmons.

The dude that is so good that he can't shoot a three-pointer in today's NBA. The man has a legit fear of jumpshots. It's incredible. What's even more incredible, though, is the way he's been shoved down our throats as the best thing going and future of the league. How? How is the player that can only drive to the net or pass it to his teammates (that's it! that's all he can do!) going to be that in today's NBA? Oh, and he's definitely not a rookie. After contributing 19 points in a survival-style Game 4, Simmons said that he wasn't ready to start his offseason vacation. No word as to whether or not he was ready for that offseason vacation when he basically cost the Sixers Game 3 with his horrendous play.

Everything about the Sixers and the core of The Process seems phony, corny, and insufferable at best.

But I'm sure that we'll once again be forced to listen to how awesome these players are, how impressive their character has been as they try to fight their way out of this largely self-dug hole of a series deficit, and how good they are for the league as they try to become the first team in 130 tries to overcome a three-to-zip start to a series.

All while Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Rozier continue to kick the hell out of them without a lick of the flair.

Turns out it's not hard to see why a rowdy Garden crowd was saying something else about The Process during Game 1.

And why it wasn't Trust.

Ty Anderson is a digital producer for 985TheSportsHub.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Have a news tip, question, or comment for Ty? Follow him on Twitter @_TyAnderson.