Adjust your calendars for Sixersing and set your watches to Tank because the NBA has released their 2013-14 team schedules, and due to backlogs in the NBA League Office, the Sixers are still listed as an NBA team. So we've got a schedule. Check it out in its entirety here.
If you want to get the tanking ready early, I hope you haven't already made Halloween plans -- the Sixers will be kicking off their 0-82 campaign right with a home loss to the defending champion Miami HEAT. I like capitalizing the last WORD.
A few other things I've noticed or stolen from other people who have noticed them.
-- They start off with 7 of 9 home games. Best to get used to the empty seats at the Wells Fargo Center early.
-- Charlotte leads the NBA with 22 back-to-backs, but the Sixers are not far behind with 20. Three especially turdtastic two-day spans -- Heat/@Bulls, @Clippers/@Warriors, Pacers/Grizzlies. They won't walk right for a week after those.
-- Back-to-back-home-and-home with Andrew Bynum (lol) and Cleveland early on, November 8th and 9th. We'll see how that goes.
-- Friday, December 20th could be the date for LB Night at the Sixers game. They have Brooklyn that night, which is delightful.
-- Some big tanking games towards the end of the season, as Ethan Rothstein tells us, especially with two Charlotte Bobcats engagements in the final two weeks. Two Celtics affairs are also in April, if Boston decides to commit to the psychotropic tanking goodtimes. Crunchtime tanking. Very important.
-- Here's all the games played per weekday, per Ed Kupfer. Dave's got Sundays and all the National Holidays and all of his important birthdays, so don't worry.
-- And in the Royce White Department, here (also from Kupfer) is a handy stat of Travel Miles by team. The Sixers, as luck or shameless begging would have it, have the fewest travel miles of any team in the NBA at around 36K. Minnesota leads with over 50K. That's excellent news for Royce, who if you didn't know, has a flying phobia and won't be able to fly to every game. Hopefully the Sixers are generous with buses.
Any games you're looking forward to? Personally, I'm more excited for the Delaware Sevens schedule release party.