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Mediocracy No More: Recapping The Sixers-Bucks Twitter Slap Fight

You never know when you'll need a properly timed comeback. Like in sports movies, or when you're losing money on the slots, or on Twitter.

By Sean O'Connor
Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

We interrupt your regularly scheduled 76ers big boards and mock draft and big board mock drafts (three couldn't decide so it's waiting for offers from four and five) to bring you a completely meaningless Twitter exchange from the Sixers and Bucks twitter accounts.

Yes, this is late. Late yesterday the Sixers and Bucks had a harmless back-and-forth exchange that apparently some thought was juvenile, because some people don't know how to have fun I guess. Sixers CEO Scott O'Neil even apologized for the exchange, which I will recap below.

To make things more interesting, and even though I'm not an expert in the vaunted Code of Points, I'll judge each part of the exchange like an Olympic gymnastics judge that totally hasn't been bribed by Max Rappaport or Sandro Gasparro nor is part of the Soviet bloc.

(Okay maybe a little bit of the Soviet bloc part)

Breakdown: This is a relatively innocuous tweet that hits most of the team promotional points - a high point in the franchise's past (outside of anything Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Oscar Robertson did, maybe the highest) featuring a franchise great, a standard this-day-in-history time-filler that the offseason is made of. Nothing groundbreaking though, a short article without much theatrics or modern day updates. It's a nice, solid team Twitter message that unfortunately for the @Bucks crossed the paths of the @Sixers.

Score: 7.5

East German Score: 0.0

Breakdown: This tweet is (insert five fire emojis). A reminder that the Sixers and zebras everywhere ultimately won that series is exactly what the Sixers account should tweet in that situation. Sure, those may be fighting words, but like the 2001 ECF, the Sixers would win a twitter war.

The Sixers are the best at two things: (1) initiating a rebuilding strategy so extreme that the NBA almost changed its rules on them, in doing so angering rival teams, rival fans, some of its own fans, and 97% of local talk radio, and (2) social media.

The only way this tweet would be more perfect is if it were a quoted retweet with the original content shown below. Replies struggle to go viral unless they're particularly nasty. Unless you follow both teams, you missed this initially.

Score: 9.6

East German Score: 10.0

Breakdown: The Twitter equivalent of "Scoreboard!" just came crashing down from the great white north. And it wasn't bad, except the Bucks had the worst record in the NBA like 12 minutes ago, and they were eliminated in the playoffs in the first round. Mediocracy won't die.

But it's about the only way Milwaukee could respond there, and while not really related to anything at hand in the discussion of events from 14 seasons ago, is a credible way to react. Are the Bucks going to admit defeat? That they lost the series? Definitely not.

Short and sweet, plus escalation into a news item, without using a horse/gun emoji link makes this tweet a win for the social media staff in Milwaukee.

Score: 8.0

East German Score: 0.0

Breakdown: The right way to respond: don't let Milwaukee escape without addressing the elephant in the room. And with a social media-friendly 30 second clip, a Sixers victory celebration highlight, it was short, sweet, and effective. The "Same." message really brings some effective sarcasm into the mix as well, sarcasm which is clearly evidenced by the clip.

Score: 8.5

East German Score: 10.0

Breakdown: That went downhill quickly. The Bucks try to pull another "Scoreboard" but fail miserably. Nobody cares that Michael Carter-Williams beat the Sixers with a 30-point performance! Literally no one! The season ended for both teams! This is awful!

It does everything wrong from the get go and is impossible to recover from. The Bucks are dead in the water, the Sixers just need to ride the ship home and they'll come out on top.

Score: -4.7

East German Score: -∞

Breakdown: The good old "Wikipedia link to a definition with no comment" mic drop works well enough here, though I'm sure better ideas could have been used. For instance, a link to Monty Python's "And Now For Something Completely Different". Still, @Sixers nailed the idea of the response, if not the execution, unlike @Bucks which failed in every respect.

Score: 7.6

East German Score: 10.0

Breakdown: Defeat has been admitted.

Score: 0

East German Score: A collapse akin to the Berlin Wall

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