Sixers champs remind of 30-year drought

THE CONTRADICTION couldn't have been greater.

At halftime of Sunday's home finale, the Sixers honored the 30th anniversary of their 1982-83 team - the last one to win an NBA championship for Philadelphia.

The 18,764 fans at the Wells Fargo Center were delirious with joy seeing their conquering heroes who helped hang one of just two NBA championship banners in South Philadelphia.

Then reality crashed the party and the 2012-13 version of the Sixers played 24 more minutes against the Cleveland Cavaliers to complete the home schedule.

One team from 3 decades earlier represented the release of frustration from a basketball city that was tired of hearing "We Owe You One," and was finally rewarded for its support.

The present team represented a season full of frustration, anger and bile from one of the most anticipated seasons in recent memory crashing and burning worse than the '83 champions did when they flamed out of their title defense in the first round of the '84 playoffs against the New Jersey Nets.

The failed trade for center Andrew Bynum, who cost the Sixers the equivalent of four first-round draft picks but never played a game because of injury, has been a blight on the entire 2012-13 season. In a history littered with low points, the Bynum fiasco will rank at or near the top of the list of disasters.

So Sunday was about two teams separated by 30 years that represent the best and worst of Sixers tradition.

"I think there's probably room for more communication on issues relevant to the franchise right now," said Julius "Doctor J" Erving, who got rid of some personal championship demons in Philadelphia with the '83 title. "We're really in a bit of a hole. It's almost like starting over.

"You don't want to totally start all over, especially after the last 2 years and so much was accomplished. And now [the trade for Bynum] not working out."

There are few places outside of Philadelphia that would consider a 4-1 first-round playoff loss to the Miami Heat in 2011 and a victory over the Derrick Rose-less Chicago Bulls in the first round in 2012 as "so much accomplished."

On the other hand, the numerical designation doesn't truly capture the magnitude of how long 30 years between championships is.

In 1982-83, I, like a lot of people who were sitting in the Wells Fargo Center Sunday, was a senior in high school.

Now we're approaching 50, with many of us having raised families of our own. Depending on how early they had their first child, some of those '80s teens could be grandparents now.

People 30 and younger in Philadelphia have grown up having never seen a Sixers team grasp the Larry O'Brien Trophy.

In 1982-83, global politics still revolved around the atomic-bomb-fueled staredown between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Now the USSR is a jigsaw puzzle of mini nations spread across Eastern Europe, and American kids consider al-Qaida and North Korea our threats.

In 1983, the first commercially available mobile phone - the DynaTAC by Motorola - was bigger than a shoe, offered 30 minutes of talk time and cost nearly $4,000.

The portable-music device of choice was the Sony Walkman, which utilized cassette tapes - not even compact discs.

"Real People" and "That's Incredible" were what passed for reality television. Kourtney was the only Kardashian out of diapers.

But the main relevant difference is how far this franchise has fallen.

All franchises go through cycles, but the Sixers' primary rivals in 1982-83 - the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers - have both gone through bad times and renaissances in the past 30 years, while the Sixers have been stuck in almost perpetual mediocrity.

The Celtics have won three NBA titles since 1983, with the last coming in 2008.

The Lakers, whom the Sixers swept for the 1983 title, have won eight titles since, including beating the Sixers in the 2001 NBA Finals.

The appearance in 2001 with Allen Iverson is the only time the Sixers have even reached the Finals in 30 years.

No one talks about the Sixers with reverence anymore.

This is also the 50th anniversary season of the Sixers relocating to Philadelphia from Syracuse, N.Y.

Philadelphians have spent more than half of that history waiting to see when the next NBA championship parade would come along.

"Nothing is guaranteed," Sixers guard Jrue Holiday said of what the Sixers have learned. "Even though 2 years before that we made it to the first round and then the second round.

"Even this year, where everybody thought we probably would have had a really good chance. You know, with Andrew Bynum, probably making it pretty deep in the playoffs. Nothing's guaranteed, so take it one game at a time. Don't wish any time away."

Columns: philly.com/Smallwood

Blog: ph.ly/DNL