The 10 Greatest Losses in Process History
While we wait for the real Sixers to return…
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Pretty tremendous that it wasn't even a week ago when the Sixers were 7-1, riding an MVP-caliber start to the season from Joel Embiid and the high of a humming offense potent enough to close out Toronto, blow out Orlando, and escape a 60-point night from Bradley Beal. Five days later, we're 7-4, the Embiid MVP campaign is on pause while we figure out if we can even get him on the court without actively endangering his well-being, and 60 points from an entire roster team seems like it might be tough for our roster to overcome.
The good news is, these games with our COVID-depleted squad are so absurd that we're able to do something we've only been able to do very sparingly over the past three seasons, but which is still a part of our core Process identity: Having fun while losing. When your overpaid mishmash of a roster is failing to cohere and the playoffs are around the corner, it's tough to enjoy a loss just because some random guy on the bench went off for 20-plus. But when half your team is sitting and that random bench guy is suddenly your number one offensive option, basketball's a gas again regardless of final score. It's a weird and arguably dispiriting diversion in a season that seemed like it might be on its way to being legitimately consequential -- but it still beats the other kind of losing, which you may still recall we've had far too much of the past two seasons.
To celebrate this rich legacy of enjoyable Ls -- as well as to put into perspective this team's recent addition to our all-time canon -- here are the ten best losses in Process history.
10. Apr. 15, 2015: Miami Heat 105, Philadelphia 76ers 101 (The Game That Nobody Wanted to Win)
Like the boxing match in the movie version of Sgt. Bilko that accidentally got double-fixed so both competitors thought they were supposed to throw the fight, the Heat and 76ers entered Game 82 of the 2014-15 season both solidly motivated to come out with a loss. The Heat were in danger of losing their top 10-protected pick to the Sixers if they won the game and the Nets lost theirs the same day -- so we were treated to an epic showdown of Zoran Dragic vs. Point Guard JaKarr Sampson as both teams played their reserves in the hopes that they could weasel their way out with an L. The Nets ultimately won their contest, making the Miami outcome a moot point and opening the door for Michael Beasley to bomb his way to a meaningless Heat victory -- but not before JaKarr put up a solid 22 and 6, and the Sixers sealed their early-Process legacy by playing in arguably the tankiest game in NBA regular season history.
9. Nov. 5, 2016: Cleveland Cavaliers 102, Philadelphia 76ers 101 (Rookie Embiid Goes 4-4 From Three)
A largely forgotten, but extremely fun one from the early-Embiid era, where the Sixers came back from trailing by 18 to take the reigning champs down to the wire. Ersan Ilyasova had 21 off the bench in his second game as a Sixer after being acquired for Jerami Grant (whoops), but if you remember this one it's for one of two things: Embiid's emphatic swat of the King (which miiiiight've been a goaltend), or his connecting on four-of-four from deep. At that point it still felt like every game we were discovering new and wonderful things that JoJo was capable of, and this breakthrough from distance against the East's best certainly softened the blow of Gerald Henderson fumbling the ball away on the final, potentially game-winning possession. (TBF, it certainly looked like he was correct to protest that he was fouled on the play.)
8. Oct. 28, 2015: Boston Celtics 112, Philadelphia 76ers 95 (Okafor's Debut)
The drafting of Jahlil Okafor with the No. 3 pick was a moment of extreme Hooray Question Mark trepidation for the Process Faithful, but by the start of the 2015-'16 regular season, we'd had a long offseason to talk ourselves into Big Jah being the (very temporary) answer to all our problems as we prayed for Joel Embiid to make it to the next autumn healthy. And Game One of the regular season seemed to validate our delusions, as Okafor put up a very convincing 26 points on 10-16 shooting against a solid Boston team. Eight turnovers, sure, and we lost by 17, double sure, but that glimpse of a rookie offensively advanced well beyond his years was good enough for the time being -- at least until another six or seven losses into the season, when we started to realize that a couple good post moves weren't actually gonna save our souls that cursed season.
7. Mar. 4, 2015: Oklahoma City Thunder 123, Philadelphia 76ers 118 (The Jason Richardson Comeback)
A personal favorite: After being a contractual throw-in to the Andrew Bynum trade in the summer of 2012, Jason Richardson had at last one fairly solid month with the Sixers, before knee surgery knocked him out for the rest of the season in Jan. 2013 and ultimately forced him to miss two whole years of pro ball. He finally made it back in Feb. 2015, by which point the 34-year-old had become a total afterthought on an uncompetitive and rebuilding Sixers roster -- but he had one more great game still left in him, scoring 29 points and hitting the game-tying three as the Sixers took the playoff-bound Thunder to overtime in one of a surprisingly high number of dramatic showdowns between the two teams during the Process era. (Isaiah Canaan also had 31-7-6, but he has his own game, of course.) OKC ultimately prevailed thanks to a staggering 49-15-10 night from Russell Westbrook -- back when his numbers were still more helpful than harmful to winning -- but man, J-Rich. Number 23. I always liked him in a Sixers uniform.
6. Apr. 1, 2016: Charlotte Hornets 100, Philadelphia 76ers 91 (The Elton Brand Double-Double)
We didn't have a lot to cling to in the dog days of our 72-loss 2015-'16 campaign -- that's how Carl Landy ended up getting "MVP" chants for scoring 22 points in literally the final game of his NBA career -- but one truly feel-good moment came courtesy of our good buddy Elton Brand. EB shouldn't even have been playing real minutes on a squad that brought him out of retirement to serve as some kind of veteran role model to the worst team in modern NBA history, but injuries and a lack of better ideas forced him into real rotation minutes. The results for a 37-year-old who'd barely played in two years were creaky as expected, but one night in Charlotte he was able to get the Old School Chevy engine reved up once more, fighting his way to 13 and 11 in 24 minutes off the bench, the 408th and final double-double of his 18-year NBA career. When he was announced as the Sixers' new GM a couple years later, a semi-legitimate point in the case for it not being a patently ridiculous personnel move was, "Well, that double-double in the 2016 season, though..."
5. Aug. 11, 2020: Phoenix Suns 130, Philadelphia 76ers 117 (KOQ's Near-Triple-Double)
Really, you could've chosen any of a trio of late-bubble restart losses where Simmons was already out for the year and Embiid was either limited or inactive, but our 3-12 guys fought valiantly to get us a close loss. This was the least close of the three, actually, but probably the most memorable for one reason: Kyle O'Quinn, third-string center who'd fallen out of the rotation, somehow finding himself just a point shy of one of the least-likely triple doubles in modern Sixers history. And he could've gotten it, too! After the game had been decided in Phoenix's favor, Furkan Korkmaz had the ball with 40 seconds to go and KOQ wide open under the basket -- but decided to hoist a three rather than find his teammate for the triple-double-securing bucket. (Even Godner was pissed.) Luckily for Furk, the Sixers went on to get swept by Boston in the playoffs shortly after, and we ended up sorta letting him off the hook for this one.
4. Oct. 26, 2016: Oklahoma City Thunder 103, Philadelphia 76ers 97 (Embiid's Debut)
Finally, after two long years and three interminable offseasons of waiting, Joel Embiid posted up Andre Roberson at the free-throw line and into the paint, spun back to the charity stripe, raised up for the jumper and nailed the first bucket of his NBA career -- then immediately followed that by erasing a Westbrook drive at the other end. The not-WFC was rocking, the Sixers were up 10-2, their jewel of a prospect was showing his full two-way potential and it seemed like the good times were about to start rolling, never to stop again. The triumph was relatively short-lived -- OKC outscored Philly 34-22 in the fourth quarter to escape with a six-point opening night victory -- but Embiid had arrived, and for very arguably the first time since 2001, Sixers fans knew true peace.
3. Jan. 10th, 2021: Denver Nuggets 115, Philadelphia 76ers 103 (The Tyrese Maxey Game)
This game really didn't seem likely to end up one we'd remember fondly -- just seven Sixers available, with so few guard options that we had to watch multiple possessions with the comically inept Danny Green as our prescribed primary playmaker -- but Process Truster permacrush Tyrese Maxey exceeded even the most insufferable fan expectations in his first start, going off for 39-7-6 and keeping this thing competitive for two quarters longer than it should have been. Whether this one goes down in the Brandon Jennings/Rodrigue Beaubois Hall of Fame for breakout rookie guard performances that over-inflate expectations remains to be seen, but it was one of the most electric backcourt performances we've seen from a Sixer this century regardless -- an efficient one, against a real team, with no other offensive options on the roster. He's already a Process Immortal regardless.
2. Mar 1, 2020: Los Angeles Clippers 136, Philadelphia 76ers 130 (The Shake Milton Game)
Tough, tough call between this and the Maxey Game -- really, they're kinda mirror images of one another, and we're just blessed to have both as part of our history. I gave the Shake game, where our combo guard dynamo exploded for 39 points on 14-20 shooting on a Sunday afternoon, the slight nod. That's due to it coming at a low end of the 2019-'20 Sixers season where we desperately needed something to feel good about, due to it happening in Los Angeles against a Clippers team that ostensibly should have had multiple guys disproportionately equipped to handle an offensive threat like Shake, and due to that tweet. We'll see how the respective legacies age 10-20 years down the road, but for now, I think Shake's big afternoon just casts a slightly bigger shadow.
1. Jan. 30, 2016: Golden State Warriors 108, Philadelphis 76ers 105 (The Isaiah Canaan Game)
If you've been paying any amount of attention to the Process the past seven years, you probably knew this was gonna end up No. 1. This thing looms so large in Process lore that Mike only needed the slightest of tangential connections to find a reason just last Sunday to complain anew on the Ricky about Shaun Livingston not getting whistled for grabbing Robert Covington's arm before Harrison Barnes' corner three secured this regular-season game for Golden State a half-decade ago. But mostly the memories are fond ones, of pushing the eventual 73-win Warriors to the brink thanks to signature performer Isaiah Canaan, who had a team-high 19 points, including a gigantic four-point play that we basically consider our franchise's Larry Johnson moment. It's a perennial Process Hall of Fame nominee, and it's a game Sixers fans will remember long after we forget a single win the team actually picked up that season.