In the last 31 days, the Sixers have gone 10-4. In that span, they've lost to one of the worst teams in the league, but also have wins over Dallas and Orlando, teams with records well above .500.

Are they, then, a good team?

"We're getting there," Sixers point guard Andre Miller said. "The main thing is to be consistent, figure out how not to make the game hard. When you make the game easy you become consistent. That's the main thing about becoming a good team."

Miller has provided a lot of the impetus behind the team's recent success. Against Orlando Wednesday night he had 26 points and nine assists, and he and backcourt mate Willie Green outscored Orlando's guards 52-2.

The Sixers face a real challenge over the next three games when they face Golden State, Phoenix and the Clippers in just four days. Phoenix and Golden State are good teams, and the Warriors are battling for a playoff spot in the oh-so-tough Western Conference.

"We still have a long way to go," coach Maurice Cheeks said. "I think we're a young team that's just trying to get better."

A few weeks ago I wrote that Maurice Cheeks had done a good job of holding the Sixers together through adversity.

Wednesday he was rewarded for that, and for the progress the young players have shown, by having his contract extended for a year.

That was the right move, too. Ed Stefanski took a cautious approach. He likes what he's seen so far from Cheeks, but he doesn't know enough to make a long-term commitment. For instance, how will Cheeks relate to the veteran players Stefanski brings in? So the one-year deal is basically a wait-and-see attitude, which is smart. How many times do you need to see a coach extended for three years only to be fired with two years left? Talk about wasting money, and the Sixers had been masters at it.

Cheeks knows exactly what this is, too, and he seems all right with it. He talked about "the possibility" of coming back next season, so he knows how fluid the business of basketball is, how quickly things can change.

If the Sixers finish strong, Cheeks will have a chance to continue with this group he's nursed along for a year and a half now. If they don't, he gets a nice parting gift in that one-year deal.

Stefanski hasn't made a lot of moves since he was hired in early December, but so far the two he's made have been right on target.

Is it OK to be cautiously optimistic about where the Sixers are going?

The NBA trade deadline looms on Thursday and though Andre Miller's name will appear in various rumors they're not coming from the Sixers.

In many cases, it's wishful thinking. With money under the cap this summer, enough to improve the team through a trade or free-agent signing, why create another need by trading one of the better point guards in the league.

Yeah, the argument is that he'll be 34 or 35 when the Sixers are ready to contend. That didn't stop the Mavericks from chasing Jason Kidd, who is 35 right now.

Miller's game, unlike that of other guards we might name, isn't predicated on speed, so a sharp dropoff in what he brings isn't likely in the next few years.

There is a school of thought that Ed Stefanski is bluffing about Miller when he says he's not trading him, trying to drive the price up.

But I tend to think that if you've got a solid point guard -- many would list Miller in the top five or six in the league -- why move him and take a chance that you'll be able to find one again in two years?

If you could, would you trade Miller, and what would be an acceptable package?

Aaron McKie, who began the season as a volunteer assistant coach with the Sixers before being used as part of the Pau Gasol trip, wasn’t with the Grizzlies on Wednesday night for what coach Marc Iavaroni said were personal reasons.

Even so, McKie’s name appeared on the dry erase board running down the list of opponents and their tendencies.

Next to McKie’s name, which was last, assistant coach Jimmy Lynam wrote, “Savvey vet; doesn’t shoot as well as he thinks he does; used to defend.”

Not wanting to miss a chance to get in on the comedy, someone else expanded on that with “Don’t defend, rotate off him.”

Speaking of Iavaroni, who was on the 1982-83 Sixers, he’s actually just one of four guys with the Grizzlies with ties to Philly. In addition to McKie, there’s also Kyle Lowry and Hakim Warrick.

Lowry, who went to Cardinal Dougherty and Villanova, was asked if he’d ever seen his coach play.

“You watch the old film you see him hacking and fouling and setting some hard screens,” he said. “But he did a great job. He knew his role and he made a living at it.”

He also won a ring doing it.

The NBA would be a much better league if one of two things happen. It would be a tremendous league if both did.

Saturday night, the Los Angeles Clippers came into the Wachovia Center looking dead tired. They’d played in Toronto Friday night and apparently a plane problem delayed their arrival here until 3 a.m.

By the time the game rolled around, they were pretty much toast and were down 59-40 by halftime. It was never really a game.

That brings up to my first point: the season is too long. Take away 20 games, eliminate most back-to-backs and the product would improve almost instantly. Each game would mean more for one thing, and if you spread them out over the same amount of time the extra rest could only help the players.

The other thing that would help the game is contraction. Do you really need teams in Memphis and Charlotte? Neither really draws, and both are more geared toward college ball than the pro game. There are probably a couple other cities you could say the same about, maybe even Philly (although the Sixers have deep roots here by now).

But if you cut the number of teams back you increase the talent pool for the remaining teams.

Neither of these will ever happen of course, but you can always dream.

One of Larry Brown’s catch phrases as a coach was “play the right way.”

Now he has a player he can point to who epitomizes just what he means.

“I think he’s anybody’s type of player,” Brown said of Sixers point guard Andre Miller. “He talks more on the court than off the court. He is such a professional. He’s terrific. He’s one of the most underrated players I’ve ever been around. I always tease about playing the right way and everybody always asks me what that means, well, he’s a pretty good examples of that. I just think as a player -- and you can never, ever make up for Allen (Iverson) and what he meant to your team – but when you look at some trades that are being made and you find that we got Andre Miller at least. That’s pretty significant.”

Brown was in Atlanta with the Sixers on Monday, visiting with his brother, Herb, an assistant with Atlanta as well as former Brown assistants Bob Bender and Mike Woodson, now the Hawks’ head coach.

It’s obvious that Brown is itching to get back to coaching, and he spends a lot of time in the Sixers’ practice facility working with any player who will listen to them.

And though he says teaching and practicing is what he loves best about the game, he longs to get back behind a bench and prove that his last go-round with the 23-59 Knicks in 2005-2006 was the anomaly in his Hall of Fame career.