Trust the process: Philadelphia 76ers executives explain the mantra that defined an NBA revolution
If the Philadelphia 76ers, one half of Thursday night’s NBA match at the O2 Arena, had come to London in another of their more recent seasons, the most effective marketing may have been to position the game as a basketball freak-show.
Far from a showcase for globetrotting greats of the sport, a 76ers’ game would have been best billed as a chance to witness an almost peerlessly bad team take a hammering. After all, only two seasons ago the franchise known as the Sixers finished with just 10 wins from 82 games — the second worst record in NBA history — and surpassed the previous milestone for consecutive losses.
Yet they line up against Eastern Conference leaders Boston Celtics this evening as a young team on the cusp of the play-offs, playing in front of a sold-out home stadium and backed by a city once again buzzing with excitement.
From the outside, it seems an improbable turnaround. For those running the franchise under owners Joshua Harris and David Blitzer it was all — 72 losses included — part of a plan that would become immortalised in the slogan “trust the process”.
“We told fans that we’re ripping this thing down and we’re going to build something special,” Scott O’Neil, chief executive of the Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment group which also owns football club Crystal Palace, told City A.M.
O’Neil, who was appointed in 2013, got to work on driving depressed ticket sales and equipping the engine room that runs a modern sports franchise — the medical team, the analytics department, the kitchen — with world-class talent.
That was the “building something special” part. The “ripping down” came on the court as the team, following the vision of former general manager Sam Hinkie, started tanking. The 76ers’ best players were traded for top picks in the NBA’s amateur draft of youngsters and no immediate replacements were sought. An avalanche of losses followed — 253 in four seasons — but that only set the Sixers up for an even better position in the draft.
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It coincided with one of our players, Tony Wroten, publicly saying ‘trust the process’,” says O’Neil.
“He was a bit of a journeyman, a not particularly heralded guy, but he came out and said ‘coach keeps telling us to trust the process’. We fanned the flames of that and the fans jumped all over it. We had this movement.”
The mantra became a rallying cry for the team as it embarked on its unorthodox, long-term plan.
O’Neil also oversees ice hockey franchise the New Jersey Devils and eSports franchise Team Dignitas (Source: Getty)
“We believed from day one that our plan would work and it’s come true,” 76ers president Chris Heck told City A.M.
“We knew that this team would become exciting and successful. And so the proposition was: ‘You better get in now, because you’re not going to have the opportunity in a few years’. And it worked and was proven right.
“It has been a process of patience both for our fans and for the executives and front office personnel. But it’s right on course. The plan has really been working.”
Two of those high amateur draft picks, 23-year-old Cameroonian Joel Embiid and 21-year-old Australian Ben Simmons, are now among the league’s brightest young talents and are leading a resurgent Sixers side.
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Having sold just 3,500 season tickets in 2013, the franchise has now maxed out at 14,000 and a further 7,000 are on a waiting list.
Of course, it is not all plain sailing when your ship is sinking like a stone. “I was booed off the court,” recalls O’Neil. But the unwavering the belief was that for an unfashionable city unable to attract big stars, this was the only route to the ultimate goal of becoming “one of the elite franchises not only in the NBA, but in sport”.
Playing abroad to a potential new pool of international fans represents a significant step on that road.
Simmons, Embiid and Markelle Fultz (l-r) are the young faces of the franchise (Source: Getty)
“You go back five years to when we started and it was: ‘Can we secure the local passion and the local brand and then grow it?’,” says Heck.
“It’s accelerated so fast that the time is now right to flip the switch and make this a global brand. That’s why we’re here. Not only are we excited about being in London, we think it’s an opportunity to springboard us to the rest of the world too.”
With Embiid and Simmons currently posting numbers to rival the NBA’s already world-renowned players Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and LeBron James, the current proposition to Londoners now is similar to the appeal to Philadelphians in 2013: trust in the process now and reap the rewards later.
“Now you’re starting to see the foundation,” says O’Neill. “It’s not the top of the pyramid. This process is not finished.”