HOUSTON — Heading into tonight's game against the 7-1 Rockets (see game notes), the question for many is: How many points will the Sixers lose by tonight?
There's the old cliché that anybody can beat anybody on any given night in the NBA. Sorry, not this Sixers team on this night in Houston.
The Rockets are 17-point favorites and have the highest point differential in the NBA at plus-11.2.
The Sixers have dropped their last two games, both on the road, by a combined 85 points.
It is painful basketball to watch. Even Brett Brown admits that, though his reasoning differs from the fans' perspective.
"The thing I feel bad about, to see what they do every single day," Brown said after his team's 53-point loss, referring to his players' practice habits. "They don't cheat days. Nobody skips days. They work their tails off. The whole process is solid, but to come out here and to play a game like that is an eye-opener, no doubt about it."
It can get worse before it gets better, given tonight's opponent and Monday's game against the defending world champion Spurs. San Antonio's 4-3 record is not indicative of its capable talents.
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The first six games of the season, the Sixers were competitive, not for 48 minutes, but large portions of the games. They were competitive despite playing without Michael Carter-Williams.
That were far from competitive the past two games, even with Carter-Williams and Nerlens Noel back Thursday night.
The Sixers lost by 30 or more points eight times last season, and four of those losses came before veterans Spencer Hawes and Evan Turner were traded.
Milwaukee had the worst record in the NBA last year with 12 wins, seven fewer than the Sixers had, but the Bucks lost by 30 or more points just one time.
During the 2013-14 season, Orlando had the worst road record in the NBA at 4-37, and yet only one of those losses was as bad as the Sixers' last two defeats.
The Sixers are in uncharted waters, even for bad teams.
Brown is left to carry out a very difficult coaching job, but he signed up for the job knowing how the rebuilding plan would be carried out. There was full transparency.
Transparency does not prepare coaches and players for repeated disappointments the likes of Sunday and Thursday night.
In Brown's 11-year tenure with the Spurs, San Antonio lost to an opponent by 30 or more points four times, and never more than once in a given season.
Putting Thursday night's disaster in perspective would be easier if the Sixers were not traveling such a unique path of rebuilding.
Bad losses happen in the NBA, but not at the rate it happened last season for the Sixers, or worse, the projected number of such losses they could experience this year.
Brown said repeatedly Thursday night his team had to find a way to be competitive, but in certain environments, that just may not be possible.
That, however, is the price the organization is willing to pay to execute "the plan."