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Adam Sandler movie predicted this 76ers roster
Philadelphia 76ers guard Kyle Lowry. Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

Adam Sandler movie predicted this 76ers roster

In the movie "Hustle," Adam Sandler plays a basketball scout for the Philadelphia 76ers. The movie features current and former 76ers Tobias Harris, Matisse Thybulle, Julius Erving and...Kyle Lowry?

Lowry appears in multiple scenes of "Hustle," usually alongside Harris and Thybulle as Sandler's character, Stanley Sugerman, tries to get the Sixers to sign his client, Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangomez). But when the movie came out, Lowry was a member of the Miami Heat, after a 2021 sign-and-trade from the Toronto Raptors.

The movie was filmed during the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, and released in 2022. Did the filmmakers know something about Lowry's future plans at the time? Lowry grew up in North Philadelphia and played college ball at Villanova, so he's absolutely a Philly legend. But in the movie, he spends so much time with 76ers players that it feels like he's a member of the team.

Perhaps the filmmakers thought Lowry would head to his hometown when he became a free agent in the summer of 2021. The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that Lowry would be the "missing piece" for the Sixers ahead of the trade deadline, and Toronto reportedly came close to trading Lowry to Philly at the deadline.

Three years later, after the Heat traded Lowry to Charlotte and the Hornets bought him out, the prophecy of "Hustle" has finally been fulfilled. Though his co-stars Thybulle and Doc Rivers have both left Philadelphia, Lowry and Harris have reunited in the City of Brotherly Love.

Unfortunately for the Sixers, they passed on Juancho Hernangomez, who is playing for Panathinaikos B.C., the top team in the Greek league. And just like in the movie, when the shot-blocking Bo Cruz joins the Celtics, Boston has thrived after adding a dominant European big man of their own this season: Kristaps Porzingis.

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