A Philly Tradition Unlike Any Other: The Rights to Ricky Sanchez Lottery Party
For a normal person, one of the best days of the year is Christmas. You get all those gifts, everyone is merry, and it’s one of the few days out of the year it’s acceptable to pass out on the couch at 4pm. For a sports fan, one of the biggest days of the year is fantasy football draft day. It’s one of the few times you can get your whole friend group in one room and if you play your cards right, you end up with bragging rights for the rest of the year. For Sixers fans, one of the biggest days of the year is the NBA Draft Lottery. The reasoning, well that’s pretty hard to explain.
We have reached the latest and greatest installment of the NBA Draft Lottery Party at Xfinity Live. Once again, the party has grown larger than ever thanks to the guys on The Rights to Ricky Sanchez podcast and its cult-like following. Ricky listeners gathering together to watch a telecast of a probably rigged lottery drawing embodies who we are as fan base: passionate, invested and beyond ridiculous.
I’ve been asked many a time, “why is this such a big deal? This isn’t even a real draft.” There is absolutely no way to describe it to an outsider without sounding like a lunatic. The short answer is that when you’ve endured as much losing as we have over the years, you need a glimmer of hope and something to celebrate. That hope and celebration has been provided to us in the form of the picks swapping as well as securing the #1 overall pick that netted the team Ben Simmons. The rest of it is just controlled chaos for a good time during a rough era. It’s the only place where you have to multi-task paying attention to a wedding whilst also booing Danny Ainge every time he’s flashed on the big screen.
This year has all the makings of a wild night and a new chapter. If last year was a funeral for the Process, this year is the birth of Process II: The Golden Age. It’s the first time since the lottery party began that we do not have a lottery pick thanks to our own wrongdoings. Thank you Luke Walton. This 52 win season was the most emotionally invested I’ve been in a Sixers team in all my life. The Eagles won a Super Bowl, THEE Super Bowl for the first time ever, and I can make the argument I put more emotion and rooting effort into this 76ers team. I am so excited to see just how high the trajectory of this core soars. It feels great to enjoy a sport in Philadelphia and also carry on a tradition that stems from years of misery and talking yourself into Khalif Wyatt being a solid role player. Watching Robert Covington during the Live Ricky will be like watching my son cross the stage at graduation.
As for the actual Lottery, I have faint hope deep in the pit of my stomach that we will somehow secure the #1 pick similar to how I believed we would come back from down 3-0. Look, we deserve the #1 pick because Philadelphia needs a month straight of 97.5 and WIP callers claiming they’d take Jalen Brunson over Luke Doncic with the pick. Football is a ways away and the Phillies just aren’t doing it for me so I need those types of hot takes in my life. In all likelihood, we end up with the tenth pick, the Lakers finally give it up, and Mikal Bridges falls in our laps. Oh, and then Lebron signs.
Shirley Temple flavored Rita’s water ice, a full fledged wedding ceremony, a menu based off of NBA personalities who have wronged us; as far as cults go, we sure as hell give Penn State football fans a run for their money. It’s ludicrous, it’s exciting, it’s on brand…it’s the Lottery Party. The perfect night to point to once a year and say, this is what makes Philly fans, Philly fans.