Hinkie We Made It: Sixers Win Super Bowl

The three greatest moments in modern Sixers history are now as follows: 

1. Moses predicts "Fo', Fo', Fo'" 
2. Iverson steps over Tyronn Lue
3. Brett Brown wins the lottery

It's hard to overstate just how beautiful last night was, largely because it's impossible to overstate just how ugly it could've been. Watching Mark Tatum open envelopes with a thousand of my closest Sixers-loving friends at the Rights to Ricky Sanchez Lottery Party at Xfinity Live, any excitement at the prospect of things going well was unceremoniously vacuumed up by sheer terror at the idea of things going disastrously. When the fourth pick was revealed — which either could have been the Sixers' nightmare or dream scenario, though it ended up being neither — I think I may have physically left my body. It was the kind of moment that you can't believe ever actually occurs in the present, that seems far safer to only be anticipated or remembered. 

But when the Sixers made the top three, and then the Celtics and Lakers were unveiled as #3 and #2 respectively, the release of three years of building tension washed over the crowd like purple rain. Fans were hugging everything in sight. Beer was flying around like champagne from a championship celebration. My recently busted foot got stomped on a couple times. My friend's father repeatedly proclaimed: "Better than sex!" 

This is what we waited three years for. Every move of the Sam Hinkie era, particularly the more controversial ones, was made with this moment as an end goal. We kept putting ourselves in the right position to reap the NBA's highest rewards, and at long last, we have so reaped. For the first time in 20 years, we have the number-one pick in the NBA draft, and with it, the best chance we've had yet to choose the player who may one day lead us out of the NBA desert. It's what we always wanted. 

There'll be a lot of debate in the month to come, of course, about Ben Simmons vs. Brandon Ingram. Do we draft the tantalizing upside of the prodigious frontcourt multi-threat Simmons, or opt for the more modernized and easily NBA-translated scoring wing Ingram? I haven't decided yet — I have many hours of YouTube to watch — though for now at least, I tend to lean Ingram. 

But I can't properly stress just how little last night was about that. When Tatum pulled out that Lakers logo from the penultimate envelope, it wasn't Simmons or Ingram's highlight reels running through anyone's mind as they celebrated. It was just the simple thought: Finally. It was three years of losing, losing, and more losing, given after-the-fact redemption and purpose. It was a relief realizing that the NBA gods also subscribe to the quintessentially Philadelphian philosophy of "You can't lose 'em all." It was the Process proving trustworthy. 

Yo someone did this outside the Lottery Party #OneFourTwentyFourTwentySix pic.twitter.com/nnTp380I0g— Spike Eskin (@SpikeEskin) May 18, 2016

And moreover, it was about how we all got there together. My brother, who couldn't tell Jahlil Okafor from T.J. McConnell, came to Xfinity last night, and I failed to really put together the words to explain to him just how special what he was witnessing was, even before the Lottery results were aired. Because the fans that were there last night weren't there to find out if the fates held Simmons and Ingram or Dunn and Hield in store for the Sixers — they were there because they'd found a part of themselves in the Hinkie-era Sixers, they'd found meaning that extended beyond basketball, they'd made a connection that went beyond wins and losses and the players on the court and the guys who sign their checks. They'd basically discovered the church in a basketball franchise. They'd found love in a hopeless place. 

Last night was one for the cult. It was a chance to look around at the people who stayed true during one of the roughest three-year stretches in the history of professional sports, and to be able to say to one another: We made it. It was worth it. As RTRS co-founder Michael Levin ranted about on Twitter earlier in the day, even if the franchise doesn't deserve the prosperity after the way they elbowed Hinkie out of their treehouse and disrespected those who'd stayed loyal to him, there's no denying that we deserve it as much as anyone (except Brett Brown, natch). Tonight we were finally paid our just desserts. And it was some unreal, key-lime-pie s**t. 

Brett Brown: "The fans deserve this. I feel we have been rewarded for the city's perseverance." #Sixers pic.twitter.com/momf4Gwjsg— John Clark CSN (@JClarkCSN) May 18, 2016

And the dude with the biggest smile on his face (a smug, ear-splitting I told you so grin) was probably Our Once and Always Dark Lord himself. It sucks that Hinkie couldn't be around to see it — though I could swear I saw him in sunglasses and a hoodie at the back of the Lottery Party last night, nodding with self-satisfaction as everyone celebrated before slinking off into the night — but this vindication is exactly the closure he needed for his time in Philly, hard evidence that he was onto something all along, and a great final resumé item for wherever he ends up applying next. It's his final parting gift to us, equipping us with one last mega-asset to ensure us that everything will be all right in the end. We're welcome. 

Of course, all that said, anyone who's opinion about Sam Hinkie actually changed last night really just never understood the dude in the first place. Last night proved the long-overdue culmination of his rebuilding (fine, tanking) efforts, but it could've already happened a dozen times by now. It could've happened with us landing No. 1 and Wiggins in 2014. It could've happened with a healthy Joel Embiid and a Liberty-bound Dario Saric taking the floor in 2015. It could've happened with the draft order last summer shaking out just the littlest smidge differently and us ending up with #OneSixEleven(Fifteen) instead of just #Three. The Hink had us in position for all of that stuff to happen, it was mostly just bad luck that none of it did. The only difference last night was that Sam threw Rock and the karma gods finally threw Scissors. 

And that, really, has been the point of Trusting the Process the whole time. The idea was always that you didn't know, couldn't know, when things were ever going to go right for the rebuilding Sixers — you just had to stay the course, and believe that with enough tries at the roulette wheel, eventually things would come up Red, White, and Blue. Last night they finally did, but even if they hadn't, the logic would've been the same, and we'd have just as good a shot at cashing out the next time. Now, though, the fruits of Hinkie's labor are at long last undeniable, and anyone who still doesn't Trust the Process can go watch the friggin' Kings next season. 

Which isn't to say we're out of the woods yet by any means. No. 1 picks aren't guaranteed to turn a franchise around — just ask our new Fearless Leader about his very experiences with that phenomenon a decade ago — and the Sixers still have a ton of work to do to fill in the blanks around our new cornerstone, regardless of who he ends up being. We'll almost certainly be back at the lottery next year, though by then, hopefully our odds at the No. 1 pick will be more about our pickswap with Sacramento than anything else. 

But look: Sports have to be about something besides just winning. In a league where 29 out of 30 teams ultimately go home disappointed, the Larry O'Brien trophy can't ultimately be the thing you judge your success by as a fan. Sports have to be about faith, about community, about family, about history, about identity, about belonging to something bigger than yourself. What made last night such a great moment in Sixers history was that it was about all of that stuff. And hopefully soon enough, it'll finally be about winning, too.