Opinion: The 76ers’ ‘Process’ will be remembered as a failure after Game 7 loss to Hawks
The Philadelphia 76ers could not beat the Atlanta Hawks in a Game 7 at home on Sunday night. They couldn’t do it even though Hawks star Trae Young had one of the worst shooting games of his career, making just 5-of-23 from the floor. In fact, they couldn’t do it against a jump-shooting team that didn’t actually shoot particularly well for the entire series.
They couldn’t do it in front of their own fans, which they had earned because they had the best record in the Eastern Conference. They couldn’t do it with the jaws of opportunity wide open in this most unusual NBA season where none of the remaining teams has a championship pedigree. They couldn’t do it even though most of the Hawks’ primary players lacked any playoff experience whatsoever coming into this season.
They couldn’t do it because the end result of all those years of losing was a series of poor choices that now puts Simmons at the fulcrum of where the 76ers go from here.
How bad is this for the 76ers? In the eight years it took them to get to the point of no return, the Atlanta Hawks have made the Eastern Conference finals with an overachieving roster, tore it down, briefly dipped to the bottom of the league and returned with a completely new team that went into Philadelphia and won three times over the last two weeks, including a 103-96 victory in Game 7 that few saw coming.
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Nobody expected the Hawks to be in the Eastern Conference finals, but the way they won this series shows that you don’t have to be awful for half a decade to build a good team. In fact, one of the Hawks’ problems was that when they decided to rebuild following the Paul Millsap-Al Horford-Jeff Teague-Kyle Korver run, they never quite got bad enough to get in great position for the No. 1 overall pick.
But what Atlanta general manager Travis Schlenk did do, besides getting Young, was picking John Collins and Kevin Huerter in back-to-back years with the No. 19 draft pick. On a night when Young struggled to make shots, those two combined for 41 points and 23 rebounds and have looked throughout the Hawks’ run like guys you win with in the playoffs despite not being premium draft picks.
“It’s been a long couple years,” said Huerter, who made 10-of-18 field goals. “It’s only my third year, but it’s been a long two years of being at the bottom of the East and all you hear is development and guys getting better and preparing for the future. And this year trying to flip a switch, our whole mindset changed and the development process was over.”
Indeed, when Hawks majority owner Tony Ressler decided to spend free-agent money this past offseason, there were plenty of critics who said Atlanta was rushing their own process and that an ownership mandate to start winning games was irrational.
It might have looked that way in early March when the Hawks were 14-20, but a coaching change from Lloyd Pierce to Nate McMillan and the subsequence toughness that grew within this team in playing close games has validated everything about how Atlanta chose to rebuild.
Nearly a decade into the “Process,” Philadelphia’s franchise has never felt more aimless. Atlanta’s future has never seemed more promising. And now in the Eastern Conference finals, the present isn’t half bad, either.
Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Dan Wolken on Twitter @DanWolken.