This Sixers team looks like Hinkie's worst yet

I'm afraid I have some bad news for you today, so it might be a good idea to sit down if you are not, or to remain seated if you are. Ready? Here we go.

The NBA is letting the 76ers play again this season and it starts Wednesday night.

I know, I know. Try to breathe. Get some water. You knew this was coming.

Better? OK, I'm sorry to have to tell you something else. There is more bad news. No, no. Alexey Shved isn't coming back, but you're on the right track.

The Sixers are going to be even worse this time around.

Wait a minute, you say. They can't be worse. They have big men Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor together. The team won 18 stinking games last season, and 19 the previous season when general manager Sam Hinkie began this descent into the abyss. That's two long years of suffering. Certainly by the third year, and with two high lottery picks on the floor, they will be better.

Nuh-uh.

Let me qualify that a little bit. By midseason, when guards Tony Wroten and Kendall Marshall have returned from their knee surgeries, the Sixers might be vaguely watchable. That is assuming that both swingman Robert Covington and shooting guard Nik Stauskas also shake off their recent injury woes and contribute to the cause. It is assuming a lot of things, to be honest, but by January or so, it's possible the Sixers could win a few games. Until then, every victory will make the loaves and fishes look like a parlor trick.

A year ago, the Sixers started 0-17. No, they won't do worse than that. By the end of January, however, the 2014-15 team had somehow accumulated 10 wins. This bunch will struggle mightily to get to the same point with that many.

Or, to put it another way, when any whisper of hope lies with Tony Wroten and Kendall Marshall, it's going to be a very long season.

For the Wednesday opener in Boston, Stauskas, an offseason acquisition from the hot mess of the Sacramento Kings, is listed as a game-time decision. He was shut down during training camp with a stress reaction in his right leg but has been practicing recently. Hopefully, he has practiced his defense, which could use it.

If Stauskas is unable to play, the Sixers will dress nine players, with Noel and Okafor the only former first-round picks among them. Three of the others were second-round picks and the remaining four weren't drafted at all. Even by Hinkie's standards here, the roster is laughably below NBA quality.

Not many teams are capable of getting themselves into the situation of being shorthanded, under-talented, and hopeless before the first jump ball of opening night. It's a real art. The Sixers pulled it off because their roster contains Joel Embiid, who is recuperating from his most recent foot surgery; the aforementioned Covington, Wroten, and Marshall; and also the contract of oft-injured 32-year-old Carl Landry, who is injured (no kidding) and merely hanging around until the Sixers release him so they can top the $30 million mark for salary-cap space being occupied by players who don't happen to play here. Failing that, Landry won't be available until the first of the year, anyway.

So, the Sixers have a bunch of guys who won't play and a bunch of guys who can't play. In some ways, it doesn't matter which from each group will actually be in uniform.

Because of their thin state, the team can petition the league for a 16th roster spot after the third game of the season, and, hold onto your hats, that could mean the return of center Furkan Aldemir, who will play until he suffers from plantar fasciitis again, which usually doesn't take very long. They could also bring back Jordan McRae, a shooting guard who made 2 of 24 three-pointers in the exhibition season and was disappointed to be one of the final cuts on Monday.

"If I would have made shots, maybe things would have been different," McRae said.

Well, maybe, although it's not as if the roster is replete with other shooters, and that includes Stauskas, who hasn't proved he can get them or make them at this level. Without a semblance of a perimeter game, and with Isaiah Canaan running the point, opponents will pack their defenses inside on Okafor and do a lot of rebounding. Last season's team averaged 92 points per game. This one won't approach that most nights.

At the other end, aside from Noel and forward Jerami Grant, there's not much defense to be found. It would be nice to keep them on the court, but both are offensive liabilities, more so this season because Noel will be expected to get away from the basket to give Okafor some room. There is absolutely nothing to indicate what Noel could possibly do away from the basket except watch.

The dawn after this crushing night that approaches is the 2016 draft, when the Sixers probably will have four first-round picks, including their own, which will be very high indeed. They also should get one from the Lakers (in perhaps the No. 8-10 range), one from Miami (middle of the round) and one from Oklahoma City (bottom of the round). That's guessing, but it could be close.

They expect to finally get Embiid, although that depends on whether he feels like doing his rehabilitation this time; and they could also lure in European power forward Dario Saric, although it seems more likely he will be advised to wait for the 2017-18 season, when he will be a restricted free agent instead of subject to a rookie contract.

In any case, next season will be better. It almost has to be. And the reason is that this season, this one that begins Wednesday night, will be worse. Maybe a lot worse.

Don't say you weren't warned.

bford@phillynews.com

@bobfordsports