The Sixers carriage turned into a pumpkin well before midnight last night. Their two-game winning streak came to a screeching halt. Much to Eddie Jordan's chagrin, the team could not overcome their defensive ineptitude with uncharacteristic shooting proficiency for a third straight game. Honestly, if they need to shoot 50% or better from the field to beat injury-riddled teams, should we really call it a winning streak? Sounds more like a fluke to me.
Here's your rotation chart:
If you notice, Rodney Carney played 25 seconds in the first half, then the final 2:48 of the game, long after it had already been decided. Carney was coming off his best game of the season against Sacramento. If you can make any sense out of Jordan's explanation for this from Kate Fagan's article, please enlighten me.
Check it out here.
And here's the advanced stats chart:
I don't think we really need to go into detail on last night's game. The Clippers did basically whatever they wanted on offense, especially after the half when their (substitute) head coach realized how many gross mismatches there were on the floor and set about exploiting them.
The lowlight of the night was when Dalembert was removed with 4 fouls in the third quarter and never returned to go after the unconventional triple-double (points/boards/blocks).
At this point I'm certain no meaningful improvement will take place for this team as long as Eddie Jordan is the coach, we may see hot shooting nights resulting in wins, but that's not sustainable. To make matters worse, there is no development of the younger players and we absolutely cannot evaluate what anyone on this roster is capable of under a competent head coach in a legitimate system. In short, nothing new.
Player of The Game: Rasual Butler. Why not.
Team Record: 9-23
Up Next: @ Denver, Saturday night.
I need to put my thoughts together about this
Iguodala for McGrady nonsense. Expect a post late tonight.
"The same source said the Rockets were unwilling to trade McGrady for Sixers center Samuel Dalembert and power forward Elton Brand"
Damn they want a lot. I though this trade would really benefit the rockets for this season, they need big man. I would also like it for the sixers they aren't going anywhere this season so might as well lose salary and have a top pick
No one wants Sam Dalembert, the illusion of his play recently doesn't change the fact that he's not very good, he's over paid and the sixers have been trying to trade him for close to a year now and no one wants him.
My big problem with Fagans quotes from the 'source' are there's nothing in those quotes about the sixers dismissing the idea of including Iguodala to trade for McGrady.
I swear that I wrote my last post before reading this. Same exact points about Carney and Dalembert (+ same pic also, lol).
Happy new year Brian, I hope you take Coohan's job soon :-)
As stupid a coach as EJ is, obviously the bigger idiot is Stefanski for hiring him in the first place! I mean, given all the fanfare he came in as our savior from the idiocy of BK he started out strong with his initial moves (trading Korver, signing Brand & Kapano, drafting Jrue). But now, finds himself in some kind of double-edged sword hell...having to defend his hire who, in turn, disses him with comments questioning the talent of these pieces then reinforces his belief by not playing them! How freakin' bizarre even by Philly standards!
If the Sixers end up dumping Iguodala but keeping Brand... and saying they are doing it as a "basketball decision to get TMac," then I'm done.
I'm all for unloading Brand to give them flexibility to win down the road. But if they end up giving away Iguodala just trying to save cash but keep Brand because no one will take him, then they are no longer a team intent on winning. They would be Memphis.
There is a line between making financially motivated moves with the intention of being able to win and making moves simply to save money. For example, Detroit traded for AI last year to fix their cap situation so they could make further moves (and made bad ones ;) While Denver gave away Camby and their #1 pick just for money.
What makes you think they ARE any different than Memphis?
1) They hire a coach, and unless anybody can prove it otherwise, a huge factor in the hiring was the fact that the Wiz is paying the majority of his salary this year;
2) They let Miller walk for nothing, and do not spend the money to improve the team;
3) The Sixers do not have a 2nd round pick this past summer, and while several teams are selling their late 1st/early 2nd round picks (and there were guys there that could have helped us), the "open checkbook" is slammed shut (oops...sorry...they still hadn't decided if they were going to re-sign Miller...)
This team is f*cked until Dumb and Dumber are gone.
they are a team that theoretically has a LOT more money than memphis and a much better stadium deal (since they own the damn thing) plus they are a historical franchise.
If they pull a gasol like trade just to save some cash - stern should invoke eminent domain on the frackers
Well how much cap space would we have if we did this hypothetical deal? I think that reasonable minds could disagree about whether we could ever win a championship with Iguodala on our books, given that (a) you're not going to win with Iguodala as your no. 1 option, and (b) with his contract and Brand's, you're not going to be able to afford to bring in a no. 1 option. If Brand was pre-injury, top-10 player in the league Brand, things could have worked out, but right now he's more like a lesser Carl Landry - which is a lot better than I thought he'd ever be but not nearly good enough. And you'll never be able to deal him, so unless you're content with stasis into 2013, the argument would go, Iguodala for massive cap space may be the smart move.
Everybody seems to forget Memphis got a starting center who is averaging a near double-double in the Gasol trade and whether they lucked into him or not they are in better shape than us at the moment. The more I see this young core of ours I would rather try to win now if possible.A.I.,Elton and Iggy are probably better than any 3 we put together in the coming years because they won!t let this team drop to top 5 pick territory to get a star.
That's hindsight, at the time, gasol was nothing and very little was expected from him (marc) it was a pure salary purge by the grizz, players were included cause they had to be
would you guys be mad if the sixers traded iguodala for mcgrady? we would be getting A LOT of cap space next year, but who would want to come here if we decided to use that extra money to sign a fa? we could get a "true" sg like joe johnson, but he's like 28 or something and i feel like it would be another Brand type of signing (someone who WAS very good and you could build a team around, but now they're just pretty good and old and you're paying them so much more than they're worth). i can see why we would do it, but i just dont know if the outcome would be better than what we have now. i say try and trade thad and someone else or a draft pick for him (if they would do that which i have no idea) because i see iguodala as more of a sf anyway then try to pursuade someone reaaaalllyy good to play sg for you (like d wade omfg that would be sweet) then after sammy's contract expires get a decent center who actually knows how to speak english to play for you. (someone LIKE tyson chandler, not incredible but definitely doable) huge long shot but whatever.
No, we wouldn't be getting a lot of cap space next summer at all. I'll have a post up on it in an hour or so. We really won't have any cap space at all until the following summer.
then why would we even think about doing it? or why would the press think the sixers would do it?