The Sixers, when not frustrating their fans, are actually a lot of fun. They have a blend of young guys - Matisse Thybulle, Joel Embiid, Furkan Korkmaz - who love being silly on camera, and more serious guys - Al Horford, Ben Simmons - who are even funnier when they let their guard down.
For some reason, the team's meme-ability has popped up time and time again in a specific format: hilarious photos of players drinking. Gatorade. Smoothies. Jack, no ice. It's all been part of the Sixers' lighthearted brand, and we love it.
The 2019-20 Sixers in particular have leaned into gifting us with reaction photos of the guys drinking and sipping. Matisse Thybulle began the trend back in early January, when he left a few selfies on Tobias Harris's phone... and Harris exposed the rook:
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The photo of Thybulle mid-glug is just perfect:
During a trip to New York City, Thybulle bemoans the fact that he goes viral for everything. As a rookie subject to a little friendly hazing, and as a digitally savvy player coming up in the social media age, Thybulle might be a perfect storm for the internet.
But it's not just the young guys taking sips. After a big late-January win over the Lakers at home, Al Horford entered the fray with a post-game smoothie (see story). Because the Sixers big man is 6-feet, 10-inches tall, and has the typically gigantic hands of a basketball player, there's something extremely comical (and meme-able) about this photo of Horford savoring a tiny smoothie after the win:
Then, as the team prepared this week to return from the All-Star break, the Sixers' digital team blesesd us with yet another glorious instance of Sixers players hydrating:
There's a lot to look at in these photos, but Richardson - mid-sip, looking coyly at Shake Milton - is the obvious highlight, and Sixers fans pounced on using it as a reaction immediately:
These all, of course, come on the heels of an iconic Sixers moment, one that helped accelerate the creation of the Mike Scott Hive:
The Hive was already a few weeks old at that point, but Scott's sip - the timing, the face, and the fact that he told us later what the woman was drinking - is an all-timer and absolutely helped propel Scott from Cool Dude to Cult Hero.
There must be something intrinsically funny about photos of people drinking. It's a time-honored reaction photo tradition, from the classic Kermit (Tea Lizard) photo to the more recent screencap of Baby Yoda holding some bone broth. Is it the faces we make when we're drinking? Some sort of suspense that builds while people drink and we await what's next? It's hard to pin down, but boy does it work.
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Now, it's hard to rank these four, because I love them all so much, but if I must...
4. Richardson
3. Horford
2. Thybulle
1. Scott, because you just can't top a classic
More on the Sixers
- Why there's hope that Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid can figure this thing out
- Brett Brown is more interested in Joel Embiid's head than his hand
- What we know about Al Horford's role and the Sixers' rotation
- Matisse Thybulle, Jonah Bolden, T.J. McConnell vacation together during ASG break
- The fun Joel Embiid-Ben Simmons All-Star moment you might've missed