Ben Simmons drama not bothering 76ers, who look like one of NBA's best teams in early going

And to think, Joel Embiid hasn't really gotten going yet

Coming into the season, the Philadelphia 76ers were a popular candidate to fall toward the bottom of the Eastern Conference playoff picture, if not all the way into a play-in seed. For good reason. Ben Simmons was a training camp and preseason holdout. Going into the season without your second-best player, to say nothing of the distraction of his ongoing standoff, didn't exactly look like a recipe for success. 

But here the Sixers are, rolling along at 8-2 as the East's top seed and looking like one of the best teams in the league. On Saturday, Philly, which owns the league's fourth-best point differential, took out a good Chicago Bulls team for the second time in four days to extend its win streak to six games. 

Let's get the qualifiers out of the way: Their schedule hasn't been terribly daunting to this point. Half of their wins have come against Detroit (twice), Oklahoma City and New Orleans. It's early, obviously. The Sixers are far from perfect and still have one big potential hole that feels like the Achilles heel -- the lack of an elite half-court creator -- that's eventually going to bite them again.