The fan base in the city of Philadelphia can be a misunderstood group of people. The sports fans in the City of Brotherly Love are smart, they’re passionate, and they have high expectations on a regular basis for their sports teams.
This is no different for the 76ers as the city has shown their support for the franchise even through “The Process” era where the team underwent a serious rebuild. In the end, they were able to come away with two stars in Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons that have helped the Sixers become contenders in the Eastern Conference.
However, the team has come up short in the playoffs constantly and the fans have voiced their frustration. They will boo and jeer when they are unsatisfied with their efforts and they will also voice their displeasure on social media.
The fan debate can be controversial in this city and it grew to a crescendo when it was reported that they have played a factor in Simmons not wanting to return. He does not want to feel the wrath of Philadelphia fans after a poor playoff performance.
“I think that plays a factor I think if you asked me the fans thing affects Ben or has led up to where we’re at now, like 100%, but every person is different, right?” said Tobias Harris who dealt with his own wrath from the fans after the 2020 playoffs. “Like some people enjoy fans being that aggressive or having that much energy and some don’t. I think it’s always a medium balance of how you balance out fans, how you balance out highs and lows to a season as well so I think those are all I had to learn about that as well, my own personal career.”
Harris, like Simmons, was hit with a ton of fan criticism following a poor 2020 playoff run after signing a huge contract to remain in Philadelphia. He had to look himself in the mirror and be able to overcome all of that for his mental health.
“I would say I had to learn after we lost to Toronto, after we lost in the bubble, I learned like okay, like, why does this get you that upset?” said Harris. “Like why like fans, sending you DMs and death threats like why does that get you upset? For me it’s like, it upsets me so because I want to be like one I want to win, but I want to be better, right? So, like, it’s a self-reflection.”
Even Embiid took to Twitter earlier in the offseason to tell Sixers fans that they had to be better. He explained those comments at media day on Monday
“I’m looking at it as a whole,” Embiid explained. “Like, as a plan, as a whole because I think about what can happen in the future. I’m thinking about whether it’s we have another max salary open and we’re chasing after a free agent that wants to come here, but I’m looking at it in a way that I don’t want the fans to kind of scare people off.”
To Embiid’s point, president Daryl Morey agrees to a certain extent so he can do his job.
“Fans have high expectations,” laughed Morey. “They’re passionate. I love it. I would say just in my role, my role is to try and get the best players here so I would love for all these perceptions to turn around because I think they’re out there that we’re hard to play, but I don’t think it’s true at all. I think once players are here, they understand the fans are trying to push everyone in the right direction.”
This is a blue-collar city and the fans just want to see the effort and they want to win. It takes a special type of athlete to play in this city.
“I could be averaging 50 points and we lose, they’re still gonna be mad at me,” Embiid added. “That’s just the way it is. They work hard for the money they make. We get paid based on them coming to games and buying jerseys and all that stuff, and I’m grateful for it. I think they have the right to kind of voice their frustrations.”
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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