Dear Suffering Fans of the Philadelphia 76ers,

by: Matthew Bradwell
Joboja Chief Operating Officer, Creative Editor

The Boston Celtics are your new favorite team.

This probably comes as a shock, especially for those of you still wearing Andrew Toney jerseys, but if you have any sense of justice you’re rooting for the Boston’s big three to break the Bulls single season wins record, become the first team since the party pooping 2001 Lakers to sweep their way into the finals and the only team in NBA history to add a finals sweep to that impressive resume.

It’s not going to be easy, there is a lot to hate about the continental United States north of New York. The Red Sox went from nationally fetishized losers to “the New Yankees” after sweeping the Rockies to become the only team to win two World Series this millennium. And the Patriots may or may not be cheating their way into NFL history as the only undefeated team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

Such Bean Town dominance (to say nothing of the fact that the only picture hanging in Steve’s Prince of Steaks is of Julius Erving and Larry Bird choking each other) makes it difficult to understand why Sixers fans should start cheering for their biggest rival, but it must be done, out of good old Philadelphia spite for the man who has done more to hurt the Sixers than Bird, Robert Parish or Kevin McHale – general manager Billy King.
Unless your birth certificate reads Edward M. Snider, you are keenly aware that Billy King is one of the worst general managers in the NBA. And even if you are team-owner Ed Snider, it is terribly difficult to ignore the fact that King wasted arguably the most talented little man to ever wear an NBA jersey.

With Allen Iverson at point guard, the Sixers ranged from terrible to excellent, but never won it all, due in large part to Iverson’s lack of a supporting cast.
During Iverson’s ten years as a Sixer, the only other players who even approached his game changing ability were a Jerry Stackhouse, Dikembe Mutombo and Chris Webber.
Stackhouse was an extraordinarily promising young talent, but King traded him away arguing that the team’s overall balance would suffer from having two dominant scorers. Mutombo was a key part of the Sixers team that reached the finals, and easily the best center in the NBA that season (that is to say, the best center not named Shaq), but he didn’t join the team until February and was quickly traded to the Nets the following season.
Webber was King’s swan song, a 5-time All-Star brought to Philly to finally push the team over the top. But Webber was at the end of his career – still an above-average shooter but a defensive liability. Webber and Iverson never clicked as teammates and Webber was bought out of his contract shortly after Iverson was traded to the Nuggets.

What Iverson needed was a teammate as talented as he, in the prime of his career. King could have developed such a team internally by not trading Stackhouse or acquired one through a trade. He never did this, citing the consensus thought that such a move was as risky as it was expensive, and required a team to mortgage it’s future.

Yet that didn’t stop Celtics general manager Danny Ainge from doing just that when he traded for not one, but two superstars in the prime of their careers to compliment Paul Pierce.

Ainge didn’t care that he had to trade away virtually all of the Celtics supporting cast to aquire Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. He didn’t care that the organization would have to pay a heinous luxury tax to employ three All-Stars. He didn’t care that he had to give up prime draft picks for the next two years.

He only cared about winning, and that’s all the Celtics seem to do these days.