By Zack Rosenblatt | For NJ Advance Media
If all the years of struggle and suffering leading up to this season was "The Process", the Sixers organization determined that this season would be "The Moment."
That was the slogan, "Welcome to the Moment", an idea pushed in promotional material trying to get fans to buy tickets.
That idea is probably a bit premature, that this is the moment. The moment, in theory, should come when the Sixers put the cap space to good use, talent develops and it all culminates in a franchise that's contending for the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference every year.
This team isn't there yet, but that's OK. They were never supposed to be.
On Thursday, the Sixers met the halfway point of the season with a win, coincidentally, against the East's current No. 1 seed, the Boston Celtics.
So has the first half of the season been a success?
It'd be hard to argue otherwise when you consider the circumstances.
This is a team currently in the eighth playoff spot in the East, with a record better than .500, that has overcome the following:
- Joel Embiid missing nine games.
- Markelle Fultz losing his shooting touch, and missing 37 games (and counting)
- Ben Simmons, the point guard, has only attempted nine three-pointers, and most of them were full or half-court heaves. He missed all nine.
- It's a roster with just four players over the age of 27, and three of them (Amir Johnson, Trevor Booker, JJ Redick) are in their first year in Philadelphia, on one-year contracts.
- The bench has struggled, and doesn't have much depth to speak of.
Despite all of that, this is a team in the thick of a playoff race with one All-Star starter (Embiid) and another player (Ben Simmons) who might join him next month in Los Angeles. The Sixers are 21-20, and have already completed season series with the league's best teams from both conferences, including the Warriors, Spurs, Rockets, Celtics and Raptors.
At some point, Fultz will return and add a scoring boost to the bench unit. Whether he'll be able to shoot, too, is another story.
Statistically, the Sixers rank seventh in the NBA in scoring offense, and fifth in defensive rating.
Of the Sixers' defensive improvement, Brown said "I'm proud of that. They have to continue to see the world through that lens."
Here's a look at the Sixers season through another lens: pass or fail, player by player, in alphabetical order.