Sixers offseason

[BigEd76]

That's too long of an article for someone that sucks.  I still don't understand why teams were offering $20M-$25M....

[MDS]

Plus he went to PW-M. Speaking of racist, trashy kids....

[ice grillin you]

I still don't understand why teams were offering $20M-$25M....

take a look around the league at what some of the players are making...especially percieved 'scrubs' like salmons


20-25 is chump change in the nba

[PhillyGirl]

Posted on Fri, Oct. 20, 2006   
Could Doctor J be Sixers' operator?

By PHIL JASNER
jasnerp@phillynews.com

JULIUS ERVING: owner?

Possibly.

The Daily News has learned via a source that Erving, the legendary Doctor J, has put together a group interested in purchasing the 76ers from Comcast-Spectacor.

The group, said to have Philadelphia ties, is hopeful of meeting with Comcast officials in the near future, the source said.

Erving, 56, who played 11 of his 16 professional seasons with the Sixers and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993, was unavailable for comment.

Potential suitors have been advised to deal directly with Galatioto Sports Partners, a New York-based sports investment firm that has been hired by Comcast-Spectacor; they have been required to sign non-disclosure agreements.

A group led by Andrew Barroway of the law firm of Schiffrin & Barroway, of Radnor, and including Wayne Kimmel, one of the founders of ETF Venture Funds of King of Prussia, met with Comcast officials last month.

Kimmel, via ETF, is an investor in Philadelphia Media Holdings, the owners of the Daily News and Inquirer.

The Barroway/Kimmel group is said to have had some informal discussions with Comcast-Spectacor since their meeting.

Recent speculation has suggested the asking price for the Sixers could be as much as $450 million, which would be the largest price in league history.

As a frame of reference, the Sixers' current ownership spent $130 million to acquire the franchise from Harold Katz in April 1996. Katz bought the team from the late F. Eugene Dixon for about $12 million in July 1981.

The current ownership has resolutely stood by an Aug. 4 statement from chairman Ed Snider, in which he said:

"We have been approached by multiple parties interested in purchasing the Philadelphia 76ers, particularly in the wake of recent speculation. While this is not the first time we have received some inquiries, we have decided to engage the services of Galatioto Sports Partners, an industry-leading sports-investment firm, to help us evaluate our strategic alternatives, including a sale or a new partnership. We emphasize that no decision has been made to sell the 76ers."

[MDS]

I recall Doc running the Magic into the ground. He'd be a great fit.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Can he still play?

[ice grillin you]

[hunt]

DISS GRACEA.I. admits players took advantage of classy Cheeks, vows respect
By PHIL JASNER
jasnerp@phillynews.com
This wasn't a confessional, and none of us was a member of the clergy. This wasn't Allen Iverson offering an act of contrition; it was just the 76ers' captain acknowledging a hard truth:

The players last season, with Iverson at the forefront, took some advantage of Maurice Cheeks, a former star player and respected assistant coach and person.

That clearly wasn't the only reason they underachieved at 38-44, landing in the lottery rather than the playoffs, but it was one of them. Cheeks' first season as their head coach became memorable for more than a few wrong reasons.

"It's always like that in life, it's always like that," Iverson said after practice yesterday at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. "As a parent, you know your kid is always going to take advantage of you if they can. Anybody in life will try to take advantage if they can.

"It's just been that way. If somebody's easygoing and they're laid-back, you're going to expect them to be that way all the time, and you'll act accordingly. That's the way it's probably been, even [with] myself, just knowing Mo Cheeks and knowing him as a person, not really knowing him as a head coach.

"It was kind of [easier] than it had been for me. I had tough coaches. It was real different for me. It's important for us to not try to take advantage of something like that. You've got to respect him for being the person that he is, and respect him for the job that he has."

From the first day of his second training camp, in Barcelona, Spain, Cheeks has seemed tougher, sterner and, as Iverson suggested, "probably more stubborn, more urgent than he was."

"He's still kind of laid-back at times, but he's been a little different from the Mo Cheeks that I know," Iverson said. "I think he has a lot of pressure on him to succeed around here, and he's going to make sure everything's done his way."

Last season went in various, sometimes unproductive directions, churning a level of negativity that was, in Iverson's view, "enough to get us off track."

"I definitely won't get into it, and I won't get into the players involved in some of the things, but [we weren't] together like we had been in the past, like we are right now," he said. "It's too early to see if we'll let anything distract us, but for right now, it's been positive. Last year, we were a team on paper, but we weren't as tight and together as we should have been in the locker room and outside the locker room."

Iverson said the Sixers are better and more athletic than they were. But this is his 11th season. He always says that. ESPN.com projected them to be dead last in the NBA's Eastern Conference. Sports Illustrated picked them to be 12th of 15 teams.

"I definitely think they're wrong, but I'd rather it be that way than picking us first," Iverson said as the team looked ahead to tonight's preseason game in New Jersey. "That takes a lot of pressure off our young guys. When it comes to pressure with me, it's totally different. I'm supposed to be the one that makes us at the top of those lists. I always look at it as a challenge for me every year.

"Those things don't really mean anything, but I like the idea of them picking us so far down, because we can sneak up on a lot of people [who] can take us lightly, and we can get things done. If people already expect you not to succeed, the best thing in the world is to prove them wrong."

The Sixers, Iverson readily acknowledges, are all that he knows, from the painful rookie wake-up call after being the No. 1 pick in the 1996 draft, to playing for six different coaches, to reaching the Finals in 2000-01, to last season's collapse, which culminated in a Fan Appreciation Night fiasco, when he and Chris Webber arrived late for the final home game and did not play.

"You've heard this same song and dance from me for years," he said. "Talking don't mean anything; it's just about us going out there and getting it done. I know that we're a playoff team if we put everything we do in practice out there on the basketball court, if we carry out the assignments that Mo Cheeks gives us...

"I was talking to the young guys, sharing my experiences with them [about] being here as long as I've been. Willie Green said, 'You feel the way [you do] about this organization, you have this much love for this organization, probably because this is all you know.'

"That was the first time somebody ever said something like that to me. It was, honestly, the truth. I never looked at it like that. Maybe I always wanted to stay here because of the loyalty, but... it's all I know. For me to go try to win a championship somewhere else, if I ever did, it would probably feel good if I was to contribute to it, if I had a part in winning the championship, but it wouldn't feel the same as winning one here."

But as much as Iverson says things are different, they are - to most observers - eerily the same. The core players are the same; the start-of-the-season optimism is the same. Everyone in the inner circle defines that as an advantage; the players have a better feel for the coach, the coach has a better feel for them.

It would help immensely if the players somehow avoid taking advantage of anyone within their own group and instead use their improved attitude and supposedly improved defense to take advantage of more opponents.

Even Iverson would say that's the only advantage that would really matter.

yay!...the team is built around a 10 year vet who thinks like a 5 year old!  

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Can he still play?

By what basis of comparison?..

At an NBA level?  No.
Better than all but maybe 3 current Sixers?  Yes.

[BigEd76]

No AI, no chance at MSG.  It's on CSN if anyone cares

[MDS]

Nobody does.

[ice grillin you]

easy talkin bout what players are missing from the lineup and the chances at winning a preseason nba game


thats why we love him

[BigEd76]

they won by 22 to finish 3-4 in the preseason.  Steve Mix says that if things go well, we could challenge for the #7 seed this year! 

[MDS]

I'm buying season tickets.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Is Bill Walton doing games on ESPN/ABC this year? Throw it down big fella!

I hate him.

Sixers = Eastern Conf. Finals baby!!