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76ers-Kings postponed due to slick, slippery floor in Philly

Dan Devine
Senior NBA writer
A building worker wipes the court before an NBA basketball game between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Sacramento Kings, Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2016, in Philadelphia. The start of the game was delayed due to a surface issue with the court. (AP)
A building worker wipes the court before an NBA basketball game between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Sacramento Kings, Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2016, in Philadelphia. The start of the game was delayed due to a surface issue with the court. (AP)

The Philadelphia 76ers and Sacramento Kings were scheduled to kick off Wednesday night’s 10-game NBA slate. But after a delay of more than an hour “due to an issue regarding the surface of the court,” the game was officially postponed, much to the chagrin of those who turned out to Wells Fargo Center.

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The issue with the playing surface, it seems, is that it is for some reason really wet and slippery, perhaps due to unseasonable warmth and humidity in Philadelphia for late November:

That was just conjecture, though. Apparently, nobody really knew what caused the slick court. From Dan Levy of BillyPenn.com:

“We’re not sure,” Sixers CEO Scott O’Neil told [Marc] Zumoff, [the play-by-play man for Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia’s Sixers coverage,] when asked about what caused the moisture. “Originally some thought it was condensation, which means from the ice that comes up and the floor is wet. And that’s a really easy solve. Literally you just dry it off and it’s fine. It doesn’t seem to be that, so we’re not sure.”

A slick and slippery playing surface, of course, poses a serious safety risk when you’re playing a sport that includes players running, stopping, starting and jumping:

And man, alive, was this a slick and slippery surface:

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Despite the safety concerns, Kings center DeMarcus Cousins seemed exceptionally invested in doing whatever he could to make sure he got to square off against the likes of Joel Embiid and Jahlil Okafor:

This highly unusual situation — “We play indoors for a reason,” quipped Zumoff — dragged on well past the originally scheduled tipoff time. Despite multiple reports from beat writers that a decision had been made to postpone the game, at 7:45 p.m. ET, the 76ers had public address announcer Matt Cord announce that no determination to that effect had yet been made, and that another update would be coming at 8 p.m. ET.

Shortly after 8 p.m. ET, Cord returned to the mic to announce that all concerned had agreed to postpone the game, lest someone get hurt unnecessarily.

“The NBA game scheduled for this evening between the Philadelphia 76ers and Sacramento Kings at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia has been postponed due to unsafe playing conditions on the arena floor,” the NBA said in a statement. “The game will be rescheduled at a later date.”

It’s not yet clear when that might be, but The Vertical’s Bobby Marks suggests a suitable make-up date might not come up for a couple of months:

It’s a bummer for all involved — the players and coaches who prepared for naught, the fans who shelled out and showed up only to be sent home early, and the league and broadcast partners who wound up with no product to air. That doesn’t mean, however, that the parties involved weren’t ready to get some jokes off at the situation’s expense:

We knew we could count on “The Process” to let his smile be our umbrella in these trying times.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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