the thing is, teams have done this for decades
look at the fucking Clippers
from 1982-2010 the Clippers drafted how many times in the top ten picks? #2 (Terry Cummings), #4 (Byron Scott), #8, #3 (Benoit Benjamin), #4 (Reggie Williams), #1 (Danny Manning) and #6, #4, #2 (Danny Ferry), #8, #7, #2 (Antonio McDyess), #7, #1 (Michael Olowokandi), #4 (Lamar Odom), #3 (Darius Miles), #2 (Tyson Chandler), #8. #6, #4 (Shaun Livingston), #7, #1 (Blake Griffin), #8
getting stuck in the mid-lottery constantly doesn't mean you can't turn it around but it does keep you in a state of constantly rolling over each draftee until you realize they suck or you don't want to pay them, take the Kings for example, if you cut out their period of contention in the early 2000s
from 1989-1999 the Kings piled up #1 (Pervis Ellison), #7, #3 (Billy Owens), #7, #7. #8, #7...they were bailed out with none of their high draft picks, their best draftee was at #14 (Pedja Stojakovic) and they lucked into flipping Billy Owens for Mitch Richmond who they later were able to flip for Chris Webber, AND they flipped two non-top five lottery picks Jason Williams (#7) and Corliss Williamson (#13) for Mike Bibby and Doug Christie to fill out their 2002 championship starting lineup
since 2007 they've picked #10, #4 (Tyreke Evans), #5 (DeMarcus Cousins), #7, #5 (Thomas Robinson), #7, #8, #6, #8, #5 (De'Aaron Fox) and #10
the Sixers "tanked" before too, they drafted #9 (Clarence Weatherspoon), #2 (Shawn Bradley), #6 (Sharone Wright), #3 (Jerry Stackhouse), #1 (Allen Iverson), #2 (Keith Van Horn) and #8 (Larry Hughes) over the 1990s, and made the Finals in 2001
the Dallas Mavericks made the Western Conference Finals in 1988, were coming off two 50+ win seasons...then from 1990-1998 they went: 28-54, 22-60,
11-71, 13-69, 36-46, 26-56, 24-58, 20-62
this got them the #6, #4 (Jim Jackson), #4 (Jamal Mashburn), #2 (Jason Kidd), #9 (Samaki Walker), and #6 (Robert Traylor) picks as a reward...none of whom were on the 50 win team in 2001, let alone the 60 win team that made the Conference Finals in 2003, unless you count trading Traylor for Dirk on draft night
how about the Chicago Bulls?
from 1999-2008 they rack up #1 (Elton Brand), #4 (Marcus Fizer) and #7, #4 (Eddy Curry), #2 (Jay Williams), #7 (Kirk Hinrich), #3 (Ben Gordon), #2 (LaMarcus Aldridge), #9 and #1 (Derrick Rose) how many of these players did they flip or deal before they signed superstar Carlos Boozer and became a multi-season top seed?
Golden State starts four lottery picks and a second round find, so does OKC, since 2006 the Timberwolves have churned through a #6, #7, #3 (OJ Mayo), #5 (Rubio) and #6, #4 (Wesley Johnson), #2 (Derrick Williams), #9, #1 (KAT), #5 (Kris Dunn) and #7 picks, they traded another lottery pick (#13 Zach LaVine) to acquire Butler, and
traded Love for two #1 picks in Wiggins and Anthony Bennett
Boston when healthy has a #1 (Irving), three #3's (Horford, Brown and Tatum), and a #6 (Smart) as their rotation, and Gordon Hayward is a #9 pick...they didn't have to "tank"
because the Nets are currently doing it for themthe East leading Raptors history is one of a #7, #2 (Marcus Camby), #9, #4 (Antawn Jamison), #5 (Jonathan Bender), #4 (Chris Bosh), #8, #7, #1 (Andrea Bargnani), #9 (DeRozan), #5 (Valancinunas), #8 and #9 (Poeltl)
the other two recent expansion teams have histories littered with lottery picks...
the Grizzlies have picked #6, #3 (Shareef Abdur-Rahim), #4 (Antonio Daniels), #2 (Mike Bibby), #2 (Steve Francis), #2 (Stromile Swift), #6, #4 (Drew Gooden), #4 (Mike Conley), #5 (Kevin Love), #2 (Hasheem Thabeet) as well as taking Kyle Lowry at #24
the Bobcats/Hornets have the glorious history of #2 (Emeka Okafor), #5 (Raymond Felton), #3 (Adam Morrison), #8, #9. #9 (Kemba), #2 (Kidd-Gilchrist), #4 (Cody Zeller), #9 and #9 (Kaminsky)
The Lakers have picked #7, #2 (D'Angelo Russell), #2 (Brandon Ingram) and #2 (Lonzo Ball) the last five years while amassing 126 wins,
one fewer than the Sixers who now have 127 wins over the last five seasons
the point of all these examples is to show that the Sixers did not do anything that needs to be "curbed" because they literally did nothing different than anyone else except
cut their losses faster, they realized Iguodala (#9) wasn't worth the max, Evan Turner (#2) wasn't worth anything, Michael Carter-Williams (#11) was padding stats, Joel Embiid (#3) was a superstar, Elfrid Payton (#10) was worth less than Dario Saric, Jahil Okafor (#3) was too much trouble and Ben Simmons (#1) was worth waiting for too
Jrue Holiday (#17) they flipped for a #6 pick (Noel) they got 142 games out of before deciding he'd cost too much to be a reserve...Holiday played 139 games over the three full seasons the Sixers had Noel, during which they also squeezed 111 games of 16/6/7 out of MCW
if anything, the Sixers should be held up as a prized example of a team that cut their losses quickly so they could be in position to be flexible and put together the pieces to contend rather than sat in the lottery for a decade or more
really, if you criticize the Sixers you should criticize the Cavaliers even more since their starting lineup is built out of what
four #1 picks brought in LeBron, Irving, Bennett and Wiggins (Love) usually along with a #4 (Tristan Thompson) and their tankfest for LeBron was far more shameless than what the Sixers did by churning through D-League prospects, they hired fucking John Lucas who did brilliant things like play Chris Mihm on the perimeter and Jumaine Jones inside, spent time "experimenting" with Darius Miles at point guard, regularly never called timeouts during blowouts, and had no problem with Ricky Davis shooting at his own rim to try and get a triple double
the Sixers during the four years of terror never finished worse than 26th on defense and had a 13th and 17th place finish, good indications they were actually trying and mostly that they just couldn't score (and still were only 12th this year, but 4th on defense) as they finished dead last by far in the four bad years (they were 26th on offense and 15th on defense in Doug Collins final season with All-Star Jrue Holiday, Young, Turner, etc.)
actually now that i think about, the Sixers hired John Lucas in the mid-1990s and he tried things like having Shawn Bradley play point-forward that resulted in the Sixers grabbing #3 (Jerry Stackhouse), #1 (Allen Iverson) and #2 (Keith Van Horn) picks that the team turned into the parts of a Finals team that had three "50 win" seasons...weird how there was never whining about "tanking" back then