Trying to Make Sense of the Sixers' Offseason Moves

Nick Young's a ball hog and proud of it.

Prior to the start of last season, the Philadelphia 76ers had a definite direction. With Elton Brand and Andre Iguodala present on the roster, the team would try to develop its young players, and hopefully advance out of the first round in the playoffs. The end result of the 2011-2012 season was regarded as satisfactory: a Game 7 loss in the Eastern Conference semis, an improvement to a five-game first-round exit the year before.

The 2012 offseason was, or is, supposed to be the next step in the team becoming a contender. Except, with the Atlantic division strengthening around them, the Sixers really haven't improved their roster much at all.

The Brooklyn Nets have completely revamped their team and possibly become contenders in the blink of an eye; that is for another column. The Raptors added Kyle Lowry to pair alongside DeMar DeRozan and Andrea Bargnani. The Celtics grabbed some big names, Jared Sullinger and Fab Melo, in the draft, but both are NBA question marks. 

So what have the Sixers done?

The draft is where the head-scratching began. With the 15th pick, they selected Moe Harkless out of St. John's, who is a player with potential, but one who simply does not fit on this current roster. The best-case scenario is that he becomes a right-handed version of Thaddeus Young, a player the Sixers have under contract for the next four years. Philly was already overloaded at the small forward position; in addition to Young, Evan Turner and Andre Iguodala, who is still on the roster, also play the position.

What would have made more sense would have been to take a big man with the pick; that is the glaring weakness. The Harkless signing seems to be in hope of trading Iguodala for Pau Gasol or another established big. But with the current roster, Harkless' addition will create a minutes disparity and/or guys playing out of position too often.

The Sixers did eventually take a big man in Arnett Moultrie, with the 27th pick. The problem here, though, is they gave away next year's first rounder to the Miami Heat in order to draft him. Why not just take him at fifteen, or trade down if they knew he'd still be there?

What has transpired after the draft has not been very encouraging either. Thus far the front office has:

Re-signed Lavoy Allen for 2 yrs, $6 million
Re-signed Spencer Hawes for 2 yrs, $13 million
Amnestied Elton Brand, owing him $18 million
Chose not to re-sign Lou Williams, Jodie Meeks, Tony Battie, Sam Young, and Xavier Silas
Signed Nick Young for 1 yr, $6 million

There is one positive. Lavoy Allen's contract is very reasonable; last year he showed his excellent defensive post presence, and he has potential to develop his offensive game. He's a valuable bench player at this stage, but he will have an opportunity to prove himself this season and may see starter's minutes.

And then Spencer Hawes is back. There probably weren't many alternatives, but from a diehard fan's perspective, he is just difficult to watch. Kevin Garnett ran all over him in the playoffs; as a result he lost minutes to Allen. He plays rather soft and is nonathletic. Capable of scoring spurts at times, he earned $13 million, I guess, from two twenty-point performances in the postseason. Hawes is a capable backup, but going into 2012-13 with him in position to start makes fans uncomfortable.

More puzzling than the Harkless and Hawes signings was the decision to amnesty Elton Brand. If you are not familiar, the amnesty clause, new in last year's collective bargaining agreement, allows teams to waive one player's contract from their salary cap figure while still paying the player in actuality. Brand was a hardworking player who gave 110% in every game he played with the Sixers, but his production had not merited his contract. The fact he was amnestied is not especially controversial, but ESPN's John Hollinger explains the problem with the move, as the timing was off:

But let's get back to Philly, who both amnestied Brand and announced they'd be parting ways with Lou Williams on Friday, and then said they reached a one-year deal with Nick Young.

What, exactly, are they going for here? Even after the amnesty, Philly has just $7 million in cap room, which is perhaps enough to put in a bid for the likes of Ersan Ilyasova or Kris Humphries, but if you're going to do that you might as well ride out another year with Brand, right?

Even more puzzling is the timing. If Philly had determined to amnesty Brand a week ago and not bothered with Young or the recent two-year, $13-million deal with Spencer Hawes, the Sixers were looking at max cap space and the chance to lure a top free agent. Not a great chance, perhaps, but a chance.

Now? They're looking at, best-case scenario, signing somebody almost as good as Brand. One wonders if another move is waiting around the corner -- an Andre Iguodala trade, perhaps, or some other move that will allow us to make sense of all this.

There really is no direction to what the front office is doing right now. Meeks, Battie, Sam Young, and Silas can go. Meeks had his moments, Battie is a great veteran presence to the younger guys and will probably be a coach someday, and Young worked harder than anyone, but no one in Philly is going to outcry over these moves. But why Nick Young? He is a ballhog. Plain and simple. In a team that is trying to build around Jrue Holiday and Evan Turner, two guys that already don't like to pass much, adding Nick Young won't make the big guys in the game happy.

To try to justify the move: the Sixers needed a pure scorer, and Young gives them that at a much lower price than Lou Williams would have been. The problem with Young is, well, everything except his scoring. And he doesn't score efficiently either: he shot just 40% last season. But he may be able to help the team avoid those six-minute scoring droughts that plagued them in the postseason.

I will do a follow-up post to this later in the offseason when more moves have been made.

Heart, Hustle, and Muscle

This past Friday I watched in person as my beloved 76ers fell in a 78-77 heartbreaker to the Los Angeles Clippers. The reasons for the loss on the Sixers' end were glaringly obvious: missed free throws, too many forced jump shots early in the shot clock, and lousy final play execution.

And former Sixer Reggie Evans.

The old-school, grind-it-out vet came in and simply out-hustled every other player on the floor. He sprinted the floor like a six-year-old would, and dove for loose balls like they were hundred dollar bills about to fall down a storm drain. He made Elton Brand appear as a ghost on the glass, at one point giving L.A. an opportunity for 5th-chance points.

Reggie Evans has made a career out of this type of work. In a league where being lackadaisical is the norm, the 31-year-old plays every possession as if his life rides on its outcome. No, he isn't even close to being the most skilled guy out there. Scoring is an unknown to him, and he is a career 52% free throw shooter. His skill set on another guy may have him fighting for a D-League spot.

He's simply in the league because of his blue-collar, never-say-die attitude every minute he's on the floor. It's why he's started 289 of 592 career games despite never having a scoring average of six points or more. The effect he is capable of having on a basketball game isn't seen in the stat sheet, but unbeknownst to all, it does in the final score.

When leaving the Wells Fargo Center, I heard plenty of mutterings asking why the Sixers' organization let him walk in free agency. Come playoff time, a guy like Reggie Evans can certainly be missed, because when the time comes to man up, he's always there.

Minus Melo, Nuggets Still Find a Way to Win

Recently I was reading the article in the latest edition of Sports Illustrated on the Denver Nuggets, titled Defiant in Denver. The author, Lee Jenkins, spoke about how the Nuggets have come together more as a team following Carmelo Anthony's departure, playing significantly better defense and passing the ball more often. This simple observation brought a few questions to mind: Isn't this how college teams play? Isn't this how basketball is supposed to be played? Did Carmelo actually make the Nuggets worse? This also reminded me of my hometown (and currently winning) team, the 76ers.

Many cynics of the NBA who prefer the college game have a justified argument. Criticism of the NBA is that many of the players don't hustle enough and lag back to play halfhearted defense. Watch a team like the Golden State Warriors and you'll see defense at its worst. It's not just them though, but much of the league. In college, while the players certainly don't possess the skills of those in the NBA, they actually look like they're playing for something. They routinely sprint back to find their man and dive for loose balls. In the NBA, whenever a player does this they are applauded; in college, it's expected. As Jenkins explains in the article, when Carmelo was on the Nuggets, coach George Karl couldn't bench him for jogging back on D because of his superstar status. Now he is able to have a guy ride the pine if he isn't winding himself (like college coaches do to their players), and as a result, the new-look Nuggets are allowing eleven fewer points a game.

Jenkins also mentioned a play in a 40-point Nuggets win over the Charlotte Bobcats in which numerous players passed up open shots in order to find a better one. That's one of the first things young kids learn when starting basketball, to find the best shot. Now that Anthony isn't there to clog up ball movement, this seems to be newly discovered for a team of professionals. Basketball was intended to be a team sport, not a two-man game like what the Nuggets had with Chauncey Billups and Melo. Since Anthony has left, the star-less Nuggets are averaging three more dimes a night.

So are the new-look Nuggets in fact a better team minus Anthony? It's too soon to tell whether they are better, but they are certainly more of a team then when he was there. Carmelo Anthony is an outstanding individual player, but his at times lackluster defense hurt the club. He does some amazing things on the court few others can do offensively, but is it simply at the expense of other players? We'll know this based on how the Nuggets and Anthony's New York Knicks perform in the long run.

The rosters of the Nuggets and Philadelphia 76ers are uncharacteristically common, as both lack a superstar. The Nuggets currently have eight scorers averaging double figures, and the Sixers have six. Neither has a player averaging more than sixteen a night. (Danilo Gallinari leads the Nuggets in scoring with 16 ppg, while Elton Brand for the 76ers averages 15.2, and is not even in the top 50 in the league in scoring.) And both of these teams are winning games at an unexpected pace. The team aspect prevails for these two clubs, and there are a number of different guys who could come up big every night. Both play tough D and hustle more than the average pro team. While neither are contenders just yet, the future is bright for both.

Is a superstar needed in order to win an NBA championship, as the past has suggested? Possibly. But to win games? A team can most definitely do that without one. Can the Nuggets take the next step, which is becoming a contender? Only time will tell.

Sixers' Return to Winning Ways

For the most part of this 2010-2011 basketball season, the Philadelphia 76ers have played in front of home crowds that barely fill a third of the Wells Fargo Center. Those few fans in attendance at first had little to cheer about, as the Sixers started what looked to be a terribly long season at with a 3-13 mark. But the wins this year, after the early misery, have started coming. And steadily, the bandwagon jumpers have decided to go to some games, the WFC is starting to fill, and the atmosphere that should be at any basketball game is beginning to return.

This current 76ers season has certainly had its fair share of heartbreak, completely disregarding the horrific 3-13 launch. There's been at least six games the Sixers have had under their belt, but let get away. Most recently was the game against the Memphis Grizzlies, when Philly managed to blow a 21-point 4th quarter lead.

The Sixers, since the best of the Iverson days, have taken a backseat to the Eagles, Phillies, and Flyers in the City of Brotherly Love. All three of those teams are now consistantly in championship contention; the 76ers far from it. Thus, Philly fans have paid them next to no attention. Even with this current hot streak, many fans still disregard them, and one could argue rightfully so. But some have noticed, while the Sixers still aren't a title contender, that they are playing some quality basketball.

In tonight's 100-98 thrilling win over the Knicks, there was some life in the Wells Fargo Center. The Sixers inched within two games of the 6th spot in the East, possessed by New York. Elton Brand looked like the player he was with the Clippers, putting up 33 points (his highest total as a Sixer) as well as 16 boards. Andre Iguodala, the team's centerpiece, had 18 points to go along with 16 assists. Energy came from the bench. Every player contributed, and played with more effort than normally seen in an NBA game. Coach Doug Collins is in the midst of turning around another team, in this case what was a mess left by Eddie Jordan. The Sixers have won six of their last seven, the only loss being the aforementioned Grizzlies game.

Rather than in the midseason, the team's turnaround was supposed to be as a result of the 2010 NBA Draft. When the Sixers drafted Evan Turner, he was considered the savior for Philadelphia basketball, an up-and-coming star who would take the team from Iguodala's grasp. Coming off college basketball's National Player of the Year Award the season before at Ohio State, Turner was expected to take the helm and do what Allen Iverson did: put the team on his back. In the weeks before the season, the city anticipated Turner's debut, talk of him filling the city. He was the hero, receiving a standing O at a Phillies game. Though not yet a bust, this wasn't, or isn't yet, the reality. Turner is not even starting, but coming off the bench behind former Kentucky star, yet far less acclaimed Jodie Meeks. He's shown flashes of stardom, but as of right now his role is a contributor off the bench, whatever is best needed to help the team.

That very same team first aspect is a significant reason for these winning ways, every man on the team putting the common goal of any team in any league before his own personal interests. For example, Elton Brand knows he is no longer consitantly the player he once was. He's accepted the fact that he is no longer an NBA superstar, and has accepted coming off of the bench for a few games in the past. But he rarely sits now, leading the team in scoring and rebounding, and, while no longer at an all-star level he used to be, has become a backbone for this team. Marresse Speights, a guy who can certainly play in this league, scarely saw court time earlier in the year. He didn't sulk at all, but rather worked harder in practice and earned his PT, and now contributes when he's called upon.

Are the Sixers going to win an NBA Championship in 2011? No. Not a chance. But they certainly will at least put up a fight against either the Bulls or Heat, or whoever they play in the first round of the playoffs, even if they lose the series. In watching this team one can see they have the fight that other teams lack, which has led to wins. Which, currently, aren't so hard to come by any longer.