Yet, there it was, on the scoreboard, on all the social media derision, on the top of the implausibility-meter when the 76ers broke camp for the Bahamas.

Philadelphia opened the second half of the season with a 20-point defeat at the hands of the defending-champion Boston Celtics, lost a heartbreaker at the buzzer to the Brooklyn Nets and then on Monday night was blown out by the Chicago Bulls on its home floor in a lifeless,