Sean Carroll

But before then, they were just terrible.

And it was still kind of fun to watch them because there were no expectations, right?

Like they were terrible, but you kind of knew the players.

And I didn't watch all the games because that would be, you know, I still don't watch all the games, but never have watched all the games.

But you would still watch occasionally.

You would know what was happening, even though they were probably going to lose.

And that was OK.

And then they became good.

For the last several years, the Sixers were good.

And when Embiid was in his MVP prime, then I watched a lot of games and I was very sad whenever they lost.

And now they've declined a little bit from what they were three years ago.

We all know the literal exact moment when they declined because three years ago,

Joel Embiid had just won the MVP the season before, and he was playing even better the next year than he was playing in his MVP season.

And the Sixers were regularly—Embiid was only playing three quarters because they were so good that they would have an unbeatable margin of a lead going into the fourth quarter.

But then he got injured.

And since then, it's not been the same.

And now it's less fun to watch because you're, again, always comparing expectations and reality.

And we know how good they could be if it weren't for all these stupid injuries and things like that.

And they're not that good.

And that breaks your heart.