Sixers Enact Intentional, Then Unintentional Tribute To The Late Great Dan McQuade

We interrupt our ongoing tribute to Comrade McQuade to provide a score from Thursday night: The Philadelphia 76ers defeated the Sacramento Kings, in Philadelphia, by the deeply mockable score of 113-111. Tyrese Maxey's give-and-go and-1 layup with 1.3 seconds left was the denouement to what looked for much of the second half like an embarrassing loss to the team with the league's worst record, and which happened also to be in the throes of a seven-game losing streak.

But the end of the game was not the highlight. In fact, the game itself was not much of a highlight either. It was this:

Indeed, the game itself was as much a tribute to our lad and his relationship with his Sixers as it could have been. One of his favorite teams spent much of the game preparing to soil itself against one of the league's most abject sides, after all, which is the kind of Philly thing that he found most heartwarming, in that bone-chilling way Philadelphia fans would appreciate best. That Maxey saved the day by seeking a foul rather than an artful three is also Philadelphia—the hard way, and all that. The result was what Our Favorite Son often described as the ideal Philadelphia sports outcome: a win that still left room for fans to grouse about the way the team played. Somewhere in the beyond, there is the sound of two hands clapping and one man laughing. As Comrade Magary presaged it earlier in the evening in a workplace chat, "In honor of Dan, the Sixers will win while looking like absolute shit." No great secrets, there, just the facts.

But because our beloved comrade turns out to have been the de facto people's mayor of Philadelphia all this time, simply by dint of being superbly talented, so much admired, and so deeply Philly, the Sixers weren't the only people who felt the need to offer their best salute to one of their greatest fans. There were also the folks at NBC Philly before the Flyers game:

Because no day for the Philadelphia sports fans goes by without one good performative groining, the Flyers went to Boston, gave up the game's first three goals and rallied to lose, 6-3; it was their third loss in succession and 10th in their last 12 games. The Flyers are now third from bottom in the Eastern Conference, and offer as solace only the knowledge that at least the Leafs and Rangers are behind them. That too seems like a hat-tip to Dan. Yesterday, everything in Philadelphia sports felt that way.

It was a less literal tribute to our beloved friend, but the Eagles did something very Philly, too. They hired the former backup quarterback Sean Mannion, most recently the Packers' quarterback coach and a 33-year-old neophyte as a coordinator, as offensive coordinator; he will become the team's fifth offensive coordinator in six years of Nick Sirianni, who has decisively staked his claim as the town's most successful and least beloved coaching figure since maybe forever. Eagles fans, as is their wont, went from underwhelmed to violently non-whelmed in what felt like seconds. The Birds and their fans returning to their natural habitat as the noun to the phrase "those incompetent shitheads," too, just felt right.

In sum, the town Dan loved thanked him for his service in all the ways it knows how, honoring his memory and tormenting him three more times (not including tonight's Penn-Columbia game), in a tradition so ingrained that he could only have appreciated it all. Good job, Philadelphia. You did our man right and proper. Even the Mannion thing.