By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)
The Philadelphia 76ers enter play Sunday sporting an unthinkable 1-23 record, but if they were awarded wins for having a swirl of national media attention around them, you could flip that around to 23-1. The latest story surrounds the possible hire of Mike D’Antoni as an associate head coach, following an incredibly busy week that included the hiring of Jerry Colangelo, a Brett Brown extension, and a Sam Hinkie 1-on-1 interview. The amount of attention paid to a one-win team is off the charts, and might actually increase now that the Warriors have gone ahead and finally lost a game.
Meanwhile, Philadelphia still has to go out and play games, with the next contest this evening in Toronto. The Raptors are battling along at 15-9, a game out of first place in the Eastern Conference, despite missing two starters due to injuries for large chunks of the season in Jonas Valanciunas and DeMarre Carroll. Philadelphia lost to Toronto back on November 11th by a drubbing of 119-103. Kyle Lowry had 23 points in that contest and Luis Scola had a huge third quarter on his way to 21 points in just 18 minutes of action.
The Raptors are led by the 1-2 scoring tandem of DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, who are 12th and 13th in the league in scoring, respectively. Lowry has a true shooting percentage of 59.1%, borderline elite for any player, especially one with a 26.5% usage rate. DeRozan is also above average at 53.5%, bolstered by his herky-jerky mid-range game which constantly draws fouls. He earns over 8 free throw attempts per game, the biggest reason the Raptors are 4th in the league in free throws attempted rate.
No word yet on whether both Tony Wroten and Kendall Marshall will be in the lineup; the team has stated neither will be playing back-to-backs and the Sixers have a game Monday night in Chicago. Hopefully, Philadelphia fans will get to see them too long without any minutes restrictions. It will be a happy day for the Sixers when the headlines they generate come on the court, but it doesn’t look like that will start north of the border.
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