The Sixers are finally fun to watch after more than a decade of dreck

After 11 games, we don’t know exactly what the 8-3 Sixers will be. But we do know this:

The Sixers right now are playing their most watchable basketball since they pushed the Celtics to seven games in the 2012 Eastern Conference semifinals. Wednesday night’s loss was their second in as many nights, but losses to the Pacers, then the Celtics, on back-to-back nights are nothing to be ashamed of. Not after you’ve beaten them both already.

If you know what you’re watching, and if you’re watching through the starkly clear filter of reality and not the gauzy filter of hope, it is inarguable that this sort of basketball is far more pleasant to see than any other since Andre Iguodala wore the red, white, and blue.

Admittedly, that 2011-12 season’s endeavors weren’t particularly elegant, but there was a plan, and the players had roles suited to their abilities, and they achieved to the level of reasonable expectations. The greatest flaw in the teams during the 10 years of “The Process” has been that the Sixers never were quite as good as they should’ve been. That 2012 team was; and, so far, this team is.

Achieving to their potential was the hallmark of Nick Nurse’s teams in Toronto. When they had the best player in 2019, Kawhi Leonard, they complemented him with pieces capable of winning any series against any team. And they won it all. That’s why hiring Nurse last summer was like the Sixers winning the coaching lottery.

Is this the best Sixers team in recent memory? No. That was the 2018-19 team, mainly due to the presence of prime, motivated Jimmy Butler. And while you might have enjoyed the 2018-19 edition, that wasn’t very entertaining basketball. The two principal ballhandlers, Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid, were in their second full seasons. They were very talented but very raw.

This was the height of hopefulness. Embiid and Simmons had the sort of athleticism and promise that hadn’t been seen in a pair of Sixers since Julius Erving and Charles Barkley were teammates in the mid-1980s. In fact, Embiid and Simmons might have been the two players with the highest potential as very young players in the history of the team.

But, as we see over and over in every sport, prospects are just that: prospects. There’s no guarantee that they will develop. And in 2019, every facet of their games needed polishing.

» READ MORE: Addition by Subtraction: Sixers - (Doc Rivers + James Harden) + Nick Nurse = winning basketball

And don’t fool yourself. While that team was good, watching Butler play point guard was anything but aesthetically pleasing.

Fast-forward to the past two years of James Harden Ball, which we now know, in his mind, is called “The System.” It was the worst version of 76ers basketball we’ve seen since the nightly Allen Iverson show. Every player involved was misused to accommodate an over-the-hill egomaniac whose skills had diminished and who no longer could take advantage of bad officiating.

Rewind, then, to the post-Butler years so far. There were three or four seasons in which Embiid and Simmons anchored dominant defenses, but, as anyone who knows anything about any sport will tell you, the adage “defense wins championships” is ridiculous.

Brett Brown and Doc Rivers formulated offensive attacks that inevitably excluded the versatile talent of Tobias Harris. He was wasted.

But now? Now, things are different. They are playing a beautiful game beautifully.

To begin with, Embiid’s offensive game developed to among the best in the league, and now needs only seasoning so he knows better where to deliver passes when he draws extra defensive attention.

Second, Embiid is fitter and tougher.

Third, for the first time since before Jrue Holiday was traded on draft night in 2013, the Sixers have a point guard who is not a liability on either end. Tyrese Maxey is a better defender than Harden, a better scorer than Harden, pushes the ball better than Harden, and he’s in better shape than Harden. And, unlike Simmons, he will shoot from outside of 8 feet.

Fourth, for the moment anyway, there is a bench that can produce while Embiid is not on the floor. This remains true even without Kelly Oubre, a starter who affects the team’s depth but who will miss weeks of action after reportedly being hit by a car. The fact that the Sixers beat the Pacers on Sunday without Oubre, then played them tough to the end two nights later, is startling, especially in the context of what we’ve seen the past few seasons.

Fifth, and perhaps most satisfying, the Sixers have finally unlocked the full spectrum of Harris’ ability. His player efficiency rating (PER) was 18.0 entering Wednesday’s game against Boston, his second-best PER in his 13 seasons.

Sixth, and perhaps most importantly, in Nurse they have a head coach who neither fears upsetting his principal players nor endures their insubordination. Butler and Harden were blatantly insubordinate to Brown and Rivers, respectively. This trickled down to Embiid and Simmons. Their insubordination held no consequence, since co-owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer and former co-owner Michael Rubin not only coddled their stars, they partied with them.

» READ MORE: Daryl Morey on failed James Harden trade to Sixers: ‘I think it was the right bet. We’d do the same thing.’

At any rate, the team that now represents Philadelphia basketball actually represents the brand of basketball for which the city is known. It is a balanced, unselfish team. It plays hard. It moves the ball. It runs the floor. It adheres to Nurse’s schemes.

It’s not a stretch to say that Nurse always has been a better coach than Brown. It’s also not a stretch to contend that, since he got the head coaching job in Toronto in 2018, Nurse has been as good an NBA coach as Rivers was in his prime.

All of this makes the team pleasant to watch.

Does this mean the Sixers will win a championship, or even finally escape the second round of the playoffs? No.

But if they lose, at least it won’t be painful to witness.

Well, at least not as painful.