Sixers are finally No. 1

NEW YORK - "We needed some luck."

With that simple statement, Sixers owner Josh Harris acknowledged how star-crossed his franchise considered itself, and how much that sea of misfortune changed Tuesday night.

For three years, injuries beset the better players, most notably the two foot fractures suffered by center Joel Embiid, picked third overall in 2014. Losses mounted; blowouts, as expected, but also last-second, late-game, can-you-believe-it losses. Jahlil Okafor, the No. 3 pick last year, was caught speeding and fighting, and the mismanagement of his rookie season led to the demotion and bizarre resignation of general manager Sam Hinkie.

Even the pingpong balls hated the Sixers. They had the second-worst record last year but would up picking third.

Then, Tuesday night, they won the NBA draft lottery.

Sure, they had the best chance, but that chance was just a little better than 26 percent. Considering their recent luck, they could have had a 110 percent chance at the No. 1 pick and still wound up picking third.

"This is the beginning of a new era for us," Harris said.

A new era?

They didn't sign Kevin Durant. They didn't hire Gregg Popovich. They simply earned the right to choose between a pair of unpolished freshmen: LSU swingman Ben Simmonds and Duke forward Brandon Ingram. Neither is close to being ready to turn an NBA franchise into a contender overnight. Neither is Bird or Magic or LeBron or Mike.

But then, the actual pick, the actual player, is not what the Sixers celebrated.

They celebrated emancipation.

With this pick, perhaps the late-night talk-show hosts will get off the Sixers' backs. With this pick, they launched a new profile, one in which they seek veteran free agents and develop their own talent and expect to win, instead of eating other teams' bad contracts to stockpile second-round picks and lose, lose, lose.

Emancipation begat jubilation. They celebrated with utter abandon; with as much abandon really rich people could muster.

For an hour after the pick was announced, the Sixers' entourage, 40 people strong, commandeered the stage. Executives in their 50s leaped up and down the 30-inch rise to take pictures with a Sixers jersey emblazoned with the number 1.

Bryan Colangelo, the new general manager, high-fived a 10-year-old girl named Kylie Rubin, who was dressed in a Sixers-blue sweater and Sixers-blue suede boots.

"Kylie! You did it!" Colangelo exclaimed.

Kylie was the Sixers' good luck charm. She's the daughter of Michael Rubin, a business partner of Art Wrubel and, like Wrubel, a minority owner of the Sixers. That unlikely pair represented the Sixers in the sequestered room in which the actual lottery took place. Wrubel didn't dare exit without the top pick.

"Imagine trying to explain to a bunch of, er, competitive business people that you had the best odds and didn't win!" he exclaimed.

"Well," said Harris, "we know who our lottery team is from now on!"

No one seems to care that Art and Kylie didn't max out. Had the Lakers' pick fallen out of the top three the Sixers would have gotten it. However, the Lakers got the No. 2 pick. In fact, for the first time in its 31-year history the entire draft fell into the order of likeliest outcomes. The lottery was unnecessary.

"It was bound to happen that way eventually," said commissioner Adam Silver, who gave the Sixers credit for righting their ship over the past five months. "I'm pleased that ownership is very focused on building strong management and creating a winning culture."

No, conspiracists, that doesn't mean that he rewarded the Sixers with the No. 1 overall pick . . . though Sixers coach Brett Brown seemed pretty happy when he sat down on the stage before the results were announced.

"I didn't know, but I felt something good was going to happen," Brown said. "Maybe tonight helped validate some of the bold moves our owners allowed us to take."

Those bold moves came with Hinkie at the helm. He quit in April. Jerry Colangelo was hired to oversee Hinkie in December, and Jerry was set to hire his son Bryan, so, Hinkie quit . . . and penned a dense, 13-page manifesto that painted him as a misunderstood genius. The ungracious exit left his former coworkers uneasy discussing Hinkie's contributions.

"He deserves some credit," Brown said, in measured tones . . . then staggered from the force of a shove. It was Harris. Who else?

"I interrupt this interview to give you a hug!" Harris said.

It was that kind of party.

Brown gushed about the potential of adding Embiid, fellow 2014 first-rounder Dario Saric, who has been playing in Turkey, as well as significant free agents.

"Add all that up, and the No. 1 overall pick, and it's just a well-deserved good time for our city," Brown said. "And our franchise."

A few feet away, the two most abused men in the franchise shared a quiet hug. Current CEO Scott O'Neil squeezed former CEO Adam Aron, a symbol of their shared suffering. Hinkie usually refused to address the team's issues, so it was often left to them to represent the club in the worst of times . . . as attendance flagged, as players sat, as other teams decried Hinkie's strategy of losing on purpose.

"We were due," O'Neil said. "I think of the staff - what we go through. Not just our staff, either. The people on TV and radio. The people who sell concessions. Everything has been hard. The future is really bright. This is the first step in the process to come back. But not the last."

The next big step will involve either Simmons or Ingram putting on a Sixers baseball cap on June 23. Bryan Colangelo insisted that he could not imagine a trade offer enticing enough to deal the pick. He acknowledged that the Sixers are choosing between Simmons and Ingram.

"To narrow it down to two players is probably a fair assessment," he said.

Just then Harris scampered over.

"Look!" he said. "I got a text from Joel Embiid congratulating us!"

These were some happy people. They couldn't decide on which party to hit: the Knickerbocker Bar or the party at Creative Artists Agency. They couldn't decide who should ride with whom.

Apparently, when you haven't won anything in a long, long time, it can be overwhelming.

@inkstainedretch