What Can the Sixers Do This Time?
This is beginning to sound like a broken record for suffering Sixers’ fans, but yet again, the Philadelphia 76ers are left to pick up the pieces after what can be seen as another disappointing season. Last year at this time the Sixers were seen as a team headed in the right direction. They were coming off a season that saw them return to the playoffs for the first time since the 2004-05 season having gone 40-42 and giving the Detroit Pistons a real scare by taking two of the first three games in their first round playoff series.
There was reason for optimism in Philadelphia the conventional wisdom was the Sixers were just one player away from being a top tier team in the Eastern Conference. Add another star player to the mix and they should be just a step behind the conferences top three in Boston, Cleveland, and Orlando. Enter Elton Brand.
The Sixers had money to spend and were aggressive out of the gate in pursuing both Elton Brand and Atlanta’s Josh Smith in an effort to give then coach Maurice Cheeks a legitimate front court scoring presence to go with Andre Miller and Andre Iguodala. Landing Smith was a long shot given Atlanta’s insistence they would match any offer for the unrestricted free agent and in retrospect not landing him was not necessarily a bad thing as he seems to think he is better than he actually is and seems to lack real leadership to help elevate a team to the next level.
So, the Sixers went out and gave Brand the type of deal he was looking for and apparently the Clippers had no real intentions of matching. Fans rejoiced the Sixers finally had their first real offensive low post presence since the days of Sir Charles and Moses patrolling the paint at the Spectrum. Elton Brand was going to be the player to get them over the hump and the notion of winning 50 games for the first time since the 2000-01 season when they last appeared in the NBA Finals did not seem so far-fetched.
That is, of course, until the wheels fell off the wagon and Elton Brand struggled to find his way in Mo Cheeks’ system eventually coming up lame with a shoulder injury and barely seeing the floor after the month of November. So now what? They signed Brand to a five year deal and it seems unlikely another team will take that contract off their hands just yet and it is probably a bit premature to give up on Brand just yet. They owe it to themselves to give it another try under new head coach Eddie Jordan.
The biggest issue facing the Sixers right now is who is going to be running the offense when the new season rolls around. Andre Miller is a free agent and there is rampant speculation that he was not terribly happy with how things went in Philadelphia and is not terribly interested in re-signing with the team. For the record his agent says he is open to signing with whichever team gives him the best deal and makes the most sense. Is Miller a good fit for Jordan’s system and should the Sixers make a real push to sign him?
When they brought Miller on board the initial plan was for him to be the starter while Lou Williams served as his understudy. In a perfect world Williams would have 4 years under his belt and be more than ready to assume the role as the starting point guard for the 76ers. Unfortunately Williams has not quite developed the way the Sixers hoped he would. Williams has been a key role player off the bench for Philadelphia the past two seasons averaging 23.5 minutes and 12.2 points per game but he just does not have the look or feel of a point guard and seems more suited to being a combo guard off the bench rather than a starting point guard. Williams is good off the dribble and is adept at getting to the line and getting the ball in the basket but he seems to be lacking when it comes to his handle distributing the basketball. After Williams the cupboard is rather bare with the likes of Willie Green and Royal Ivey on the bench.
Williams’ inability to develop into a NBA caliber point guard has led to mass speculation that the Sixers will be taking a point guard in the upcoming NBA draft and are targetting the likes of Virginia Commonwealth’s Eric Maynor and North Carolina’s Ty Lawson as potential point men. While it is not a bad idea to go out and grab someone in a draft deep on point guard talent this team needs a veteran hand to guide the offense while a Maynor or Lawson cuts his teeth on the NBA game. They have a very limited window of opportunity with a guy like Brand who seems to be breaking down physically and may 0nly be able to give the Sixers two or three productive years before he breaks down altogether. They need to make a serious push for Miller or find a steady veteran who will not cost a lot and can run an offense.
Aside from the glaring need for a point guard and Brand’s iffy status the cupboard is not all bare for the Sixers. It all seemed to start coming together for second year pro Thaddeus Young down the stretch of the season. Young closed the season averaging 18.6 points and 5.3 rebounds per game while shooting .521 from the field after the All Star break. The 20 year old 6′ 8″ forward has the looks being a long athletic scorer for years to come. The biggest hole in his game right now is his defensive prowess.
With the emergence of Young also came a boost in the Iguodala’s production. As Young’s scoring output increased so did Iguodala who saw his scoring average jump from 17.8 points per game leading into the All Star game to 20.4 after the break. Iguodala is showing that he is not a player you can build a franchise around and needs another player to play off of for him to be productive.
Rookie Marreese Speights showed flashes of what he can do when given the chance posting 29 double digit scoring efforts last season including a string of games that saw him score 10 or more points in six straight and eight of nine contests. Speights has the looks of a NBA low post player he just struggles with conditioning and consistency right now but he appears to have something of a future for the Sixers who hope he can blossom into a double-double guy within the next year or two.
The biggest obstacles for the Sixers getting significantly better in a short period of time is the fact that they are good enough to make the playoffs, though not good enough to contend, and not bad enough to get the top picks to get the elite young talent and, barring a significant bump, they are at or near the cap number for next season so they do not have a lot of money to spend on free agents. Unfortunately, unless they make some deals, they do not have any significant money coming off of the payroll until the summer of 2011 and the team is in what some like to call basketball purgatory. Barring a major shakeup of the roster the core of this team is locked up through the 2010-11 season. What should the Sixers do this off season to get the ship headed in the right direction?
First, and foremost, is solve the point guard situation. Whether it be to draft someone and sign a veteran to a one or two year deal to mentor your young point man go ahead and do it and get it done. Neither Young, Igoudala, or Williams have the handle to be the primary ball handler and they need someone who can do that and distribute the ball to their scorers. In a perfect world with a healthy Brand, a budding star in Young, and Igoudala the Sixers should not need very much scoring from the point position to be a playoff team.
Second on the list is addressing the atrocious three point shooting. The Oklahoma City Thunder were the only other team in the league not to have someone make at least 100 3-point field goals and the Sixers finished dead last in the league in 3-point field goal percentage hitting a paltry 31.8% of their attempts. Igoudala led the team with 80 3-point field goals but made only 30.7% of his attempts and Young led the regulars hitting 34.1% of his attempts. Bottom line is you are not going to win many games converting only 4 3-point attempts per game. Only the Thunder attempted fewer three-pointers last season.
General Manager Ed Stefanski at least made an attempt to address this weakness by dealing Reggie Evans to Toronto for Jason Kapono. Kapono has established himself as one of the league’s best sharp-shooters owning a career 3-point field goal percentage of .454 and gives the team its first legit perimeter shooter since Kyle Korver was dealt to the Jazz. However the acquisition of Kapono does not fully address the next issue on the list: shooting guard.
When are the Sixers going to give up on the notion that Willie Green is good enough to be a starting shooting guard in the NBA? I have never, ever understood the appeal of Green as anything more than a combo guard off the bench. How does a team justify a starting shooting guard whose best season saw him average 12.4 points per game, shoots 31.1% from behind the arc and only gets to the line 1.9 times per game? Either move Iguodala to the #2 spot or give Lou Williams at shot at the position. Either way Willie Green has got to come out of the starting lineup. There has been some thought of Kapono being the starter next season but he is strictly a spot up jump shooter and has never averaged more than 10.9 points per game in his career. I like Kapono more as a guy to come off the bench and give them some 3-point shooting when they need it.
The last thing on the list for the Sixers this off season is by hook or by crook find someone to take Sam Dalembert off your hands even if it means taking a bum contract off someone else’s hands. When they re-signed him he looked like a solid up-and-coming big man who was going to be a consistent double-double guy who was going to block two or three shots a game for you but the wheels seemed to fall off the cart this past season. His game seemed to regress and he saw his minutes decrease significantly and there were rumblings of him being a bit of a malcontent in the locker room towards the end of the season. This all came on the heels of him being unceremoniously dismissed from the Canadian National Team last summer leading into the Olympics in Beijing. The team’s resources are likely better served on cultivating the talent of Speights and Jason Smith who missed last season with a knee injury.
The Sixers are not a lost cause, yet but they are currently heading in the wrong direction but with a few minor changes they can get the ship headed back in the right direction and re-ignite interest in the team once again. They can get back the excitement and optimism Sixers fans were sharing around this time last summer. This is likely a summer of discontent for Sixers fans but hopefully they will be leaving the eye of the storm before all hope is lost in the City of Brotherly Love.
