The Philadelphia 76ers have looked particularly good on the hardwood of late, dropping the Atlanta Hawks in back-to-back games and winning both contests by 16 points. As a result, they find themselves in prime position to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals.
As good as they have looked in their second-round playoff series, though, the Sixers have been visual delights away from the court throughout the 2020-21 campaign.
Fashion has become a major part of the NBA lifestyle, with players on every team in the Association showcasing their style before and after every game. However, the Sixers have seemingly been at the forefront of the swag movement from day one, with Ben Simmons leading the charge.
And now, we have empirical data backing their vogue status.
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Study: Sixers One of the NBA’s Five Best-Dressed Clubs
The custom t-shirt retailer Rush Hour Tees recently set out to identify the NBA’s most fashion-forward franchises and players. For their study, the boutique had fans rate 1,117 pregame outfit images for the top six players in terms of minutes per game for each club.
Fans were also asked to classify ensembles using one of six word associations — fresh, vibrant, edgy, hard to pull off, questionable or trash.
Using that methodology, the study determined that the Sixers were the fourth-best-dressed team in the league, with an average outfit rating of 6.29 out of a possible 10. The Chicago Bulls captured top honors at 6.56 and were followed, in order, by the Denver Nuggets, the Hawks and Philly, while the Utah Jazz rounded out the top five.
27.5% of the Sixers’ pregame outfits were classified as fresh, while 24% were labeled vibrant and 19.5% were identified as edgy.
Simmons was the team’s flag-bearer in the study, as well as one of the best-dressed leaguewide. His average rating of 6.6 was tied for seventh overall with Portland Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum. Two of his “streetwear” outfits were ranked in the top 10 of the category.
Meanwhile, Bulls guard Garrett Temple was identified by the study as the NBA’s best-dressed player. On average, fans gave his outfits a 7.3 rating.
The Non-Swaggy Brooklyn Nets & Other Observations
Although the Brooklyn Nets battled the Sixers for East’s top seed throughout ’20-21, they were no match for Philly in the fashion battle. Instead, they hit the opposite end of the style spectrum.
Respondents ranked the Nets as the worst-dressed team in the entire NBA. Their average outfit rating came in at just 5.66, with 37.2% of their outfits being labeled as either hard to pull off, questionable or outright trash. Leading the way for the Nets was James Harden, who had a trash association of 22.8%.
Despite his team’s overall fashionability, Sixers star Joel Embiid was a top-fiver in the questionable category.
Although the Sixers showed well, the study didn’t really find much of a correlation between fashion sense and winning games. The Nets and Milwaukee Bucks, for example, were both bottom-three despite finishing with top three records in the East.
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Study Places Simmons & the Sixers Among NBA’s Best-Dressed