Sixers Season thread 2

[SD_Eagle5]

Iverson has no value?

Dude, stop it.

Nope.

He's got a huge deal, is still known as a problem child, and does not play well in a system. Would you trade for him? Unless we're willing to take another teams veteran and match salaries we'll never get equal value (or anything close). Trading him just so Iggy and Dalembert can get more shots is not the answer.

[Rome]

Again, I don't think they'd get equal value but to assert that they'd get little or nothing in return for him is preposterous.

[hunt]

it's odd that the folks who constantly say how great iverson is are also saying that he has low trade value.
me confused.


anyway, i'd target the teams near the bottom of this list:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/attendance?sort=home_pct&year=2006&seasonType=2

[BigEd76]

yeah, really.  how about building a team like they did in detroit?

2000-01
-- Drafted Mehmet Okur in the 2nd round
-- Grant Hill to Orlando for Ben Wallace and Chucky Atkins
-- Jerome Williams and Eric Montross to Toronto for Corliss Williamson, Tyrone Corbin, Kornel David and #1 pick

2002-03
-- Drafted Tayshaun Prince in the 1st round
-- Signed Chauncey Billups in free agency
-- Jerry Stackhouse, Ratko Varda and Brian Cardinal to Washington for Richard Hamilton, Bobby Simmons and Hubert Davis

2003-04
-- Drafted Darko Milicic in the 1st round
-- Signed Elden Campbell and Darvin Ham in free agency
-- Atkins, Lindsey Hunter, Zeljko Rebraca, Bob Sura and a #1 pick for Rasheed Wallace and Mike James

Everything pretty much turned around for that franchise when they traded Grant Hill, then getting Hamilton for Stackhouse was actually considered a steal for Washington at the time... 

The problem with the Sixers is that they have 2 guys eating up about 75% of the cap, plus they'll never get any free agents to come here because of cap room and only being able to offer mid-level exceptions, plus they'd have to play with AI and Webber, so we're stuck...

[Rome]

Everything pretty much turned around for that franchise when they traded Grant Hill...

[hunt]

that's why they should get rid of iverson & webber.

[BigEd76]

Speaking of players with bad feet, did anyone notice how fat Todd MacCulloch got?

[SD_Eagle5]

it's odd that the folks who constantly say how great iverson is are also saying that he has low trade value.
me confused.

He is great to watch. The NBA is boooooring nowadays, how many players are there in this league who are as entertaining as he is?

[SD_Eagle5]

The problem with the Sixers is that they have 2 guys eating up about 75% of the cap, plus they'll never get any free agents to come here because of cap room and only being able to offer mid-level exceptions, plus they'd have to play with AI and Webber, so we're stuck...

What's our draft pick future/situation looking like?

[BigEd76]

We have our 2006 #1 but don't have our 2007 #1 (it goes to Golden State)

[SD_Eagle5]

We have our 2006 #1 but don't have our 2007 #1 (it goes to Golden State)

Is that '07 pick lottery protected? How bout beyond that, do we have a pick in '08?

[hunt]

trade ai to the bulls for ben gordon & tim thomas' expiring contract. 

[BigEd76]

Yes to both, SD.  The only other pick we owe is a 2nd-round pick to Utah sometime between 2008 and 2010, top 40 protected.  In last year's draft, we owed Detroit a 2nd-round pick, so we made a trade with Utah to get the 60th and final pick. 

[hunt]

romey wrote this article for phillyblurbs last week:

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/256-01192006-599804.html

No A.I. in leadership for Sixers

PHILADELPHIA - Maybe, finally, Allen Iverson understands what his role is on this basketball team now. He ought to. He's been putting on the same stage play for a long time now.

For 27 minutes after the Sixers' 101-90 loss to the New Jersey Nets on Wednesday night, Mo Cheeks' was the only audible voice in the Sixers' locker room. He was the only one speaking, telling his players to stay together, challenging them to meet the measure of the moment before them.

If they're not careful, if things don't change right quick, this Sixers season will be gone before it reaches its midpoint. They're 18-20 now, four games behind the Nets in the Atlantic Division and falling, and after Cheeks finished his speech, it was time for the team leader to take some responsibility.

Instead, he absolved himself.

"I've always been the main focus on the team," Iverson said, "so I've always had that sense of urgency. You've heard me say it a million times just from me being here for so long. You can't teach heart. You can have all the talent in the world, [but] if you don't have any heart, you're going to struggle in this league as a player and, if the team doesn't have the heart, then the team is going to struggle."

Once more, in his 10th season here, this was Iverson's twisted definition of leadership made manifest. Two days after he himself had challenged Cheeks in public, claiming he was unsure of his role on the team, Iverson left himself off the list of maladies afflicting this basketball team. Bad defense? Confusion on offense? A locker room that could come apart if the coach isn't careful? It was as if Iverson would have been incredulous at the idea that he, the alpha and omega of this franchise, would have anything to do with these questions.

"Out of all the tough times I've had in Philadelphia, they've been overcome," Iverson said. "That's the only way I can look at it. I look at myself and try to do more to overcome it."

For Iverson, and unfortunately for the Sixers, do more has always meant shoot more, and Wednesday night was one more example. Iverson took 29 shots to get his 36 points. No other Sixer took more than 10. The Nets were a joy to watch with the way they worked the basketball from one player to the next, racking up 29 assists on their 37 baskets, and the Sixers are still the same sight every time they come down the floor.

Everything runs through Iverson. Everything. And it is to the Sixers' detriment. They are 8-5 when he scores fewer than 30 points this season, 10-15 when he scores more than 30. He put up 19 points in the third quarter Wednesday, a spectacular display of individual showmanship, and the Sixers began the quarter trailing by six and ended it trailing by eight. What good had he done them? He talks so much about trusting his teammates, yet he rarely follows through on his own words.

"I'd be cheating them if I honestly didn't think we had a shot" at a championship, Iverson said. "If I didn't feel like these guys could do it, I'd go in and tell Billy [King] to get me out of here."

Really, King should have done just that long ago. Is Iverson solely to blame for the Sixers' sinking season? Of course not. There isn't a member of the team's starting five, save Andre Iguodala, that is capable of playing even a modicum of decent defense, and it sure would be helpful if the Sixers had a post player with opposable thumbs. But it's clear now that building around Iverson is getting the Sixers nowhere. Whatever he says, he hasn't overcome as much in his time here as he thinks: Ten years, and only once have the Sixers advanced past the second round of the playoffs. That's a rather empty legacy, one that won't improve this year. (OUCH!  that was harsh, romey!)

Yes, Wednesday night might have been black bottom for this team, but never forget how the week began. Never forget that Allen Iverson showed the first public crack in Mo Cheeks' connection with his players. Before Wednesday's game, before the team meeting that wouldn't end, Cheeks was asked if he knew what Iverson might have meant when he said he didn't understand his role.

"No."

Why would he say something like that?

"I don't know."

Then, someone asked a sharp, serious question of Mo Cheeks about his team's most important player, its purported leader: Did you ask him to do anything differently, like pass the ball?

And he laughed and said nothing else, which only said everything. He was asked about Allen Iverson and unselfish basketball, and Mo Cheeks actually laughed.

[BigEd76]

The Sixers couldn't get past the 2nd round in the 10 years before AI, too.