Elton Brand spoke about his dislocated right shoulder before Saturday night’s game, but actual news was scarce.

Brand, who was sitting at his locker with his arm in a sling, said he’ll still be out a month even though there has been some improvement since Wednesday in his range of motion. That said, he is still in pain and expects to be for some time.

That means the post-Christmas, Western Conference road trip is almost surely out. And that means no return to Los Angeles when the Sixers play the Clippers on New Year’s Eve.

“Definitely, I’m sad,” Brand deadpanned. “I know all those fans want to wish me a Happy New Year.”

Brand spurned the Clippers for the Sixers over the summer.

Sixers forward Elton Brand will miss about a month after dislocating his right shoulder in Wednesday night’s win over Milwaukee.

An MRI Wednesday night showed that Brand had a fracture of the humeral head bone and a labrum tear, which was expected with the dislocation, a team release said. Team physician Jack McPhilemy did not feel that surgery was necessary at this time.

Brand was to begin rehabilitation immediately.

The injury occurred in the third quarter when Brand collided with Luc Mbah a Moute and used his right arm to break his fall.

The 76ers went into the season with high hopes then proceeded to play terrible basketball. Now, that 9-14 start has cost Maurice Cheeks his job.
On Saturday, after the team lost for the eighth time in 10 games Friday night in Cleveland, Cheeks was fired. He was in his fourth season as head coach. According to reports, Tony DiLeo, the team’s vice president and assistant general manger, will take over as interim coach.
A message left on Cheeks' cell phone was not returned.
The Sixers struggled through more than half of last season before adopting an uptempo style that saw them make a late surge into the playoffs.
In the offseason, they were considered by many to have made the biggest move when they signed free agent Elton Brand.
But in a way, that move may have led to this. Brand, who is coming off nearly a year off after Achilles surgery, has not fit in smoothly to the team’s running style. In fact, except for brief stretches of time, the Sixers have looked more like an inept, halfcourt team than the team that captured some attention last spring.
In three-plus years as coach, Cheeks compiled a record of 122-147. Before coming to the Sixers, he spend three-plus seasons as head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, where his record was 162-139.
As a player, Cheeks spent 11 years with the Sixers and was a member of the 1983 championship team. After 15 years in the league he retired in 1993 as the league’s all-time steals leader and was fifth on the career assists list.

Sam Dalembert might not be able to get on the court much for the 76ers, but he’s the only team member among top vote getters on the All-Star ballot.

While Orlando’s Dwight Howard leads all vote getters with 775,933 votes, Dalembert is second at center with 116,709, an indication, perhaps, of the strength of that position in the Eastern Conference.

LeBron James of Cleveland leads all Eastern Conference forwards followed by Kevin Garnet. Miami’s Dwyane Wade and Detroit’s Allen Iverson are one and two, respectively, for guards.

The Lakers’ Kobe Bryant and Houston’s Yao Ming lead the Western Conference.

Elton Brand practiced without contact on Monday, and still expects to be able to play Wednesday when the Cavaliers come to town.

“As long as it goes well with contact tomorrow I’m out there,” he said. “It’s not 100 percent, but it feels good enough to play for me.”

It’s not a serious injury, not like the Achilles tendon tear he had last year. By this time of the year, almost every player is icing or heating something before, after or during a game.

“If you’re gonna play a lot of minutes, everybody has something,” Brand said. “It’s one of those somethings. I know my body. It’s not an Achilles or something huge like that so I should be able to play.”

As for the team itself, which is 9-12 with a home-and-home with the formidable Cavs coming up, Brand said its trying to stay upbeat.

“We have a good group of guys,” he said. “I still feel like guys are positive. The guys had a good practice today, practiced hard, intense. Andre Miller, who’s known as the quiet guy, was talking. He’s trying to rev the guys up. They’ve been down before. Last year we could see that and they knew how to fight themselves out of it. I think there’s a similar feeling right now and I’m a part of it.”

Elton Brand missed his second straight game with a strained right hamstring.

The forward suffered the injury in the third quarter of Wednesday’s loss to Los Angeles, and didn’t make the trip to Detroit for Friday night’s game.

On Saturday, with New Jersey in the Wachovia Center, Brand sat out again.

“I think he’s doing OK,” Maurice Cheeks said. “ I’ll see how he feels next week and go from there. I think he’ll be fine next week, but we’ll just wait and see.”

The Sixers have three days until their next game, which is against Cleveland on Wednesday.