Building an NBA Team to Lose

The 76ers Sacrificed the Present for the Future, but Was ‘the Process’ Worth the Price?

Last February, while in Boston for MIT’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, I found myself sitting at a bar table alongside Sam Hinkie, the former general manager of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers. This was an exciting moment for me.

I’d spent the previous year working on a book about the Sixers that focused on Hinkie and his polarizing team-building strategy, which involved assembling a losing squad in the short term to get big wins in the future. Hinkie’s data-driven devotion to tanking had given Philadelphia a shot at greatness, and raised …

by Yaron Weitzman | July 30, 2020

When Philadelphia’s Foul-Mouthed Cop-Turned-Mayor Invented White Identity Politics

From 1972 to 1980, Frank Rizzo Led a Blue-Collar Backlash Against Civil Rights—in the Guise of Law-and-Order

by Timothy J. Lombardo | September 26, 2019

Philadelphia’s City Hall was the largest municipal building in the United States when it opened in 1901. Its most outstanding feature towered 548 feet above the street below: a …

Can the North Acknowledge Its Own Role in American Slavery?

Historians and Activists Pushed Philadelphia and New York to Commemorate Places Where Enslaved People Lived and Died

by Marc Howard Ross | May 30, 2019

Soon after the American Revolution, Philadelphia was the temporary capital of the United States. From 1790-97, President George Washington lived in a large house a block from Independence Hall, in …

Suppressing Voting Rights Is as Old as the Republic—But the Tactics Keep Changing

Discriminatory State Constitutions, Poll and Literacy Taxes, and Now Photo ID Laws All Have Been Used to Keep Ballots From the Less Powerful

by Allan J. Lichtman | October 8, 2018

The more that efforts to suppress voting rights in America change, the more they remain the same.

From the earliest days of the republic to the present, politicians have sought to …

A Punk Rock Tour Across Europe Gave Me Hope for Philly’s Revival

Photographing My Hometown’s Urban Neglect Captures the Hidden Potential in a City’s Ruins

By Vincent D. Feldman | July 24, 2016

Growing up in Philadelphia, I played and photographed in the ruins of buildings—some noble, even ones designated as important national historic landmarks. I wasn’t really cognizant of their importance in …

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