Sixers not exactly shying away from rebuilding concept with new team slogan

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Most rebuilding teams will never actually admit that they're in a rebuilding year. They'll tell you that they have a young team, but that they hope with some maturity and hard work that they can make a push for the playoffs, and establish a "winning culture" in the process. Most teams will never use the word "rebuild" in discussion, because that's like admitting failure before the year even really begins, a thought unpalatable to most fanbases and ownerships.

The '13-'14 Sixers, somewhat needless to say, are not most teams. To shy away from the fact that they're rebuilding would be to ignore the one and only thing that should make this team watchable next year--the fact that there's a future out there for this team, one that feels not very far away in time (even as it feels very far away in distance). If Sam Hinkie showed up to the first game at the WFC this season in a tank like his name was Master P to poke fun at the team's Wiggins-riggin', he'd become an instant legend.

Today we have a new Sixers team slogan: Together We Build.

"Together we rebuild" would have been slightly more honest, but this is still pretty damn honest. It's pretty weak as a catchphrase, but it gets at the heart of what the Sixers are doing this year--which is to say, not much, not yet.

Of course, the Sixers have tried to key the new slogan around the city's history of, uh, building shit, as made clear with this vomit-inducing intro to the press release announcing the slogan (slogans get their own press releases now?):

In 1776, our nation’s Founding Fathers gathered in Philadelphia to form the United States of America. Their vision for the country was great, but their dream took more than a pen stroke to be realized – it required hardship, years of challenge and a fervent commitment to progress to help them grasp what the future could hold.

Philadelphia is filled with landmarks hearkening back to those historic days, that speak to the city’s steadfastness in the face of adversity, and point to the sweet success achieved with an indomitable spirit.

Yuck. Keeps going, too. Anyone who actually follows this team will quickly see through this BS explanation, however, and intuitively understand that the idea here is that the Sixers ownership recognizes that the the team's current construction surely ain't much to look at, but there's a foundation there worth building around, and build we shall. Together and all.

Anyway, the campaign will reportedly include "40 different images" all around the city, so get ready for a whole lot of bad construction visual puns:

The campaign, which officially launched in outdoor advertising today, will include more than 40 different images varying on the same theme. Billboard locations include the Pennsylvania Turnpike (West), I-95 (North and South), the Walt Whitman Bridge (West), the Schuylkill Expressway (West), US 1/Roosevelt Highway (North and South), and Route 30/Admiral Wilson Boulevard at the base of the Ben Franklin Bridge (East). Print ads will also run in the Philadelphia Business Journal on Friday, October 4, as well as in the November issues of Philadelphia Magazine and South Jersey Magazine.

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