One first-team All-Star on the roster, "Scorecasting" says, yields a 7.1 percent chance. Two first-team All-Stars and your chances improve to 25 percent. Attract three first-team All-Stars and you win the championship 39 percent of the time and make the Finals 77 percent of the time.
So how does Doug Collins, coaching a roster barren of first-team All-Stars, second-team All-Stars, almost All-Stars, feel about those grim numbers?
"You can skew statistics any way you want to," he said, defensively. At least I think he said "skew."
"All I know is, we've got the only team in the playoffs that doesn't have a guy averaging 15 points a game."
He said it proudly. He has six guys scoring in double figures, which is the kind of team he promised when he took this CPR of a job, trying to breathe life into a flatlining franchise. He also said he would make the Sixers relevant again, which he's done with a bunch of young guys who some nights outrun their mistakes.
They rallied from an awful 3-13 start, and they've seldom been blown out and seldom been outhustled, which doesn't sound like much, until you recall last year's woeful efforts. The fans love Collins' enthusiasm, his energy, the way he analyzes a game when it's over, all those numbers he sprinkles around like cookie crumbs.
But let's face it. You agree with Moskowitz and Wertheim. You think a snowball in hell has a better chance of surviving than the Sixers in the playoffs. You're looking ahead, sourly, wondering not what have you done for me lately, but what will you do for me next year?
