Deitch on the 76ers

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2010-03-24T13:12:00.001-04:00

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The Unspoken Factor

2010-03-05T13:39:00.002-05:00

OK, so now we have a little more insight into the Iverson saga -- and not just over the past few months, but ever since he left Denver, really.

Marital strife has been an unseen killer of a lot of athletic careers. How many, and how much? Well, that is pretty much impossible to quantify. I'm a sportswriter, not Dr. Phil.

I'm not doubting that Iverson's daughter was ill. Not in the least. But when you combine that with a houseful of kids and a wife who, let's face it, didn't go from hopelessly devoted to filing for a divorce over the weekend ... well, Allen's personal problems didn't just crop up after the holidays.

The funny thing is that I think the divorce filing bumps Iverson's odds of playing another NBA game from absolutely zero to extremely improbable. How? Well, let's say that actual proceeding with the dissolution of his marriage lifts a weight off his back -- the one that clearly helped end his stints in Memphis and Philly, and quite possibly were involved in his being traded by Denver and being a disaster in Detroit.

Maybe (well, not even maybe -- theoretically) this will let him focus on his true love -- basketball. That doesn't change the fact that he isn't a superstar any longer. But theoretically, he might love basketball enough to change the way he approaches his court existence to make a final, more focused attempt to play somewhere (Europe?) next year.

The NBA? It's most likely too late for that.

It's official

2010-03-02T11:02:00.002-05:00

The Sixers officially announced that Allen Iverson won't return this season -- note that it doesn't say released. Because he hasn't been. And even if he was, he wouldn't be able to join a playoff-bound team and participate in the postseason because only players signed by yesterday would be.

This isn't shocking news. There were numerous reports, including in the Daily Times, that made it abundantly clear that this was going to occur. But, you know ... some media members get a little excited about the formality of it all.

Your Morning Moment of Den -- CONSPIRACY EDITION!!

2010-02-28T10:56:00.003-05:00

Say what?!? A conspiracy on a Sunday morning?

Well, it started Saturday night. That's when there was a curious throwaway line in a couple of stories coming out of Charlotte, where the CIAA -- a Division II league made up of historically black colleges -- was holding its tournament.

Guess who was there to announce his partnership in the start of a scholarship for league athletes? Allen Iverson.

Iverson, you might recall, missed last week's West Coast trip, ostensibly to continue a month-long vigil concerning the health of his 4-year-old daughter and the stability of his family in Atlanta. However, the Sixers quietly confided last week that, while they empathized with his personal issue, they couldn't continue to run a basketball organization with one of their starting players coming and going and chronically attempting to shake off rust.

But there is an interesting deadline coming up Monday. It is the last day that a player can be released to be signed by another team and be eligible for the playoff roster.

So, let's go over the details of Iverson's public appearance last night:

- He was in Charlotte, home of the Bobcats, who are ninth in the Eastern Conference, battling for a playoff spot.

- Charlotte is 240 miles from Atlanta, a mere four-hour drive away -- OK, for an NBA player it's a 2 1/2-hour drive.

- The Bobcats are coached by Larry Brown, who might be the only man left on the planet who would dare consider adding Iverson to his team.

You smellin' the conspiracy now?

Well ... unless Ed Stefanski is a brilliant liar -- and I don't think he is -- this is just a little uncomfortable coincidence. I gave Ed a call this morning about this, and he said that there has been no discussion about releasing Iverson before the March 1 deadline. He said that the Sixers expect to have a sit-down with Iverson "in the middle of the week" to make formal what has become clear: Iverson isn't going to play another game with the Sixers -- and that most likely means the end of his career.

No, he won't be going to Charlotte to play ball. Sorry, conspiracy theorists. I tried to tickle your fancy. Guess the tinfoil hats didn't work.

Podcast Alert!

2010-02-16T11:38:00.002-05:00

I'll be on John Finger's CSNPhilly.com Podcast this afternoon at 4 pm to discuss Sixers news and rumors, and I'm certain there will be some Phillies chat and general verbal abuse taking place.

Your Morning Moment of Zen -- Hostage of Houston Edition

2010-02-08T10:30:00.002-05:00

Good morning, Philly! Well, I love a snowstorm, but when it keeps me stranded in Houston, a.k.a. Baghdad of the West ... well, not so much.

But let's talk basketball, shall we? It will take my mind off the meth heads and tear streaks that have dug levees onto my cheeks.

The Sixers have won four in a row. This will make some people angry, because there are those of you who wanted them to go in the tank and pray for a lottery win in the John Wall Sweepstakes. If this is you, you're an ass. We don't tank in Philly -- period. That's for North Jersey sucks and other losers.

Now for the more pressing question: How does Allen Iverson make his way back into this lineup, considering the three best wins of the streak came while he was at home in Atlanta? (We're just going to not talk about that Nets game, OK?)

The Iverson situation has me confounded, because he has been 1) a model teammate; 2) one of the few guys in that clubhouse willing to frankly speak the truth about the team's issues. And I'll say this about the win over the Rockets: If Kyle Lowry doesn't get hurt in the third quarter, the Sixers aren't winning that game. No way, no how. Regardless, they got a break and capitalized on it. Kudos.

So, what should they do? First off, Eddie Jordan needs to accept that his second unit -- Lou Williams, Thad Young, Rodney Carney and Marreese Speights -- is very athletic, and that he needs to let that unit press opponents more often, just as he did in New Orleans.

Here's my thought on Iverson: start him with Willie Green. Then get Holiday in the game about midway through the first quarter for Iverson, and when the second unit comes in at the start of the second quarter, send Iverson back out with them. Let him be part of that pressing, athletic group. It plays to his skills and to the guys with whom he'll share the court. And that ought to make bringing him into this winning fold a more smooth transition.

Morning Moment of Den -- WOW.

2010-02-01T12:33:00.003-05:00

Wow. Just wow.

I covered the Sixers during the god-awful last season under John Lucas. I covered them during the Johnny Davis debacle. But I honestly can't remember any game that was as awful to watch as Sunday night's pseudo-win over the Nets, who are going to be hard-pressed to get to 10 wins.

There was one game that I vaguely recall in 1996, a game against the Heat. OK, thanks to basketball-reference.com I found it -- a 66-57 loss by the Sixers. That was horrendous, too. Among the shameful stats from that one: The Sixers shot 1-for-19 from 3-point land, each team had 19 turnovers, and Sean Higgins played 29 minutes.

Sean Higgins ... holy moly. That name makes my head hurt.

So, maybe the fog of time just made it seem like Sunday night's game was the worst. But trust me -- this was a once-in-a-decade display. There were at least five shots that hit off the side or bottom of the backboard. (I'm still trying to figure out where the hell Willie Green was aiming that fourth-quarter shot.) The general sloppiness and disorder was brutal to watch, and the fact that both teams saved their worst play for the fourth quarter -- you know, when you're supposed to put your best foot forward -- made it a form of torture to watch. Send the video to Abu Ghraib.

The Sixers aren't practicing today. I guess they really earned the respite with that one (/sarcasm). But thanks to a timely reminder from a friend, I'll leave you with this movie clip as a form of therapy for what went down in North Jersey.

New Theme Song For the Sixers...

2010-01-27T11:51:00.000-05:00

Three Is A Magic Number - Blin...

Three is a magic number ... the Sixers can't seem to reach.

2010-01-26T15:29:00.002-05:00

In honor of the Sixers' inability to win three -- three! -- straight games, let's remember what Schoolhouse Rock once told us. (FYI: Blind Melon does a great version of this song.)

Your Morning... Noon... Mid-Afternoon... Late Afternoon Moment of Den

2010-01-26T14:49:00.005-05:00

That took long enough. Sorry, but a combination of ailing wife/chiropractor visit/no WiFi at the 76ers practice facility meant I didn't have a cup of joe in front of me until 2:45 -- 2:45! Who the hell is supposed to function this way.

After hearing Allen Iverson chide his teammates for being "lackadaisical" in the second half of games like Monday night's loss to the Pacers, you get the sense that after having a couple of months to be with the team that he has generated some opinions on which players (or coaches) should stay and which should go.

Iverson isn't g0ing to specifically name these people ... but it might behoove general manager Ed Stefanski to bring Iverson upstairs for a sit-down and try to get an assessment of things from the veteran. Because if Stefanski wants to be the one in charge of righting a ship that he has had a hand in damaging, then he needs to get some unbiased opinions from s0meone who knows a little something about the inner workings of players -- and Iverson certainly knows something about playing with heart. The man has made a career out of it.

There has been a rise in the chatter about Andre Iguodala being a prime trade suspect. Some people insist it has to happen. I'm not quite there yet. However, what Iguodala does need to understand is that he is a part of this team's dip from mediocrity to brutality. He entered the season shooting nearly 47 percent from the floor for his career; this season he is at 42.4 percent. He tried to sell this story about last-second heaves at the end of quarters perhaps skewing the number. Come on, man. You're dealing with a math guy here. You would have had to have throw up 60-plus prayers more this season than you typically would have through a half-season in the past for that to bring your field-goal percentage down that far. Sell that somewhere else.

This isn't to suggest that Iguodala suddenly has become a mediocre player. But the arrival of Eddie Jordan and departure of Andre Miller have coincided with his being a less efficient offensive player. Is it the offense? Is it not having a well-heeled point guard putting him in better scoring positions? It could be some of both. But the real problem with Iguodala is that he seems to be in mourning out there for the leadership role that he basically has lost to Iverson, Elton Brand -- even to Lou Williams for a while. The problem is that Iguodala isn't the best leader. It isn't about intensity or effort. Few players are as focused and try as hard as he does at ends of the court. But there is a poisonous pessimist in the guy. He is that player who shows more disgust in other players making poor decisions than he does in his own (and he makes some real clunkers at times). And once a team starts having the raised expectations that the Sixers had built over the previous two seasons, that trait starts to come into play more often. And it can wreck team confidence.

That is what Iverson is seeing. I know he tried to say that the confidence is there, and I know where he's coming from. But that confidence has been lost because many of the players on this team have detached their emotions as a survival instinct -- be it from Iguodala's eye-rolls, Eddie Jordan's randomness when it comes to playing time (how in the hell was Dalembert not on the court when Dahntay Jones was backing his way into the lane against Lou Williams?), or the air of disappointment this first half has caused to permeate the locker room.

Iverson sees guys trying to survive challenges, not take them on. He knows there is no way the Sixers should be this deep in the tank. Andre Miller is missed ... but for crying out loud, he isn't THAT missed.

BTW

2010-01-23T10:41:00.002-05:00

.... if you want to follow me on Twitter, it's dd_onthenba.

A few things:

1) If you're looking for consistent, in-depth, breaking Tweets, don't follow me. It's Twitter. If I thought I could tell you something worthwhile in 140 characters or less, I'd work at the Metro. I'm a writer.

2) While I'm a writer, I'm a wannabe comedian. I'm not saying I'm funny, but I wish I was funny enough to make a living from being funny. My Tweets are often out to get a laugh out of what's happening, be it an NBA game or life in general. If this is not what you're after, then don't follow me.

3) If you are still interested in following my Tweets, then I encourage interaction. The best Tweets come from conversations.

Your morning moment of Den.

2010-01-23T09:53:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I like to sleep on things. I'm not sure if it's because somewhere in my subconscious things speak to me (I very rarely have any recollection of my dreams), or if it's the Yang of deliberation trying to balance the Yin of impulse that usually dominates my personality. Regardless of the reason, I'm going to make a "morning after" post a staple of this blog the day following games I cover.

Let's go over a couple of things that stick in my mind following last night's -- shocking? stunning? where-the-hell-has-that-been? -- victory over the Mavericks.

1) Eddie Jordan's starting switch: I know there were a few writers that were irritated by Jordan's masking his shifting of Elton Brand and Jrue Holiday to starting roles and Thad Young and Lou Williams to reserve status. Here's how I feel about it: It wasn't about us. It was an attempt at gamesmanship, and I kind of like when coaches use that in the right amounts.

m Jordan is a desperate coach right now. He should be. If the Sixers win 14 games in the second half, I can almost guarantee he will not be the coach in 2010-11. If he thought that springing a 40-percent shift in his starting five at the last minute on a team like Dallas might offer the Sixers some intangible, then why not try it. I know that in this world of Twitter and Facebook there are reporters who feel this need to offer immediate information, and if they tweeted the starting five at 6 pm (first of all, it would have been the same-ol', same-ol' ... so that would have been a snoozer of a tweet) they would have been wrong by 7 pm.

Big deal. It's a tweet. Let's not get neurotic about this stuff.

As for the lineup switch itself, Jordan got it half-right. Brand should start, and Thad Young should come off the bench. Young has been very discombobulated this season. But when you run him out there late in the first quarter or in the second quarter against an opponent's reserves, he will be the best player on the court. And when he's the best player on the court, he is very, very explosive, as he showed in the second quarter last night.

But Williams should go back in the starting lineup tonight. Holiday is a little too green for the assignment; his skills play up far better when he comes off the bench. Yes, a Williams-Iverson backcourt is very undersized and defensively overmatched some nights. But the Sixers have been a pretty good first-quarter team this season. If Williams or Iverson isn't a good fit some night, just shorten their time on the court by subbing in for them. There's no law that says a sub has to play fewer minutes than a starter.

2) The WNJC guy: This is more of a behind-the-scenes thing, but it was too humorous to not mention. There was a guy from the radio station WNJC -- don't know who he was, and I don't feel a need to point him out by name for ridicule -- credentialed for the game and he was VERY excited about the Sixers win.

Every now and then you get a non-sports media member who finagles a credential to the game. But usually they lay low and keep any excitement about being in this element to themselves. Well, the WNJC guy wasn't about to keep his mouth shut. The result was hilarity.

As the postgame presser with Eddie Jordan was winding down, WNJC guy suddenly raised his voice: "Your bench outscored them by 22 points in this game! Great effort!"

That was his question. Jordan responded with an "Uhhh, thanks" that was just precious. It was beautiful.

Oh, but WNJC guy saved his best for Allen Iverson. (Thanks to AP's Dan Gelston for the tape of this.):

"Allen, you're an All-Star, and i think you've been an All-Star your whole career, you deserve this more than anybody on the Philadelphia 76ers. You're an icon and Philadelphia loves you, as well as I do from WNJC."

Yeah, he said that.

Personally, I want that dude at every game. He was like the crazy uncle at the Thanksgiving table. I even suggested to the other writers that we have a WNJC Guy Night where we all approach the postgame interviews with that style. It would be like a Twilight Zone episode. It would be beautiful.

OK, the coffee cup is empty. I have an Iverson analysis that I thought about writing here, but I would like to write it for the paper. In the midst of his All-Star selection discussion, Allen wandered into the Tiger Woods territory, and it gave me an interesting idea for a column.

And ... we're back.

2010-01-22T18:46:00.002-05:00

Apparently a Y2K glitch had caused the blog to deep-six just before the Sixers started to deep-six themselves.

Well, they are hoping for a fresh start to the second half beginning tonight against the Mavericks, so we'll do the same with the blog.

Things to watch: The Sixers are a good offensive rebounding team, while the Mavs are solid on the defensive glass. At the other end, the Mavs aren't much for the offensive boards, but the Sixers are 25th out of 30 teams in defensive rebounding pct.

As for guarding Nowitzki, the Sixers largely will go with Iguodala against him, but Dalembert will switch off Dampier and try to offer some size against Nowitzki if he decides to post the smaller Iguodala.

Iverson, Sixers meet

2009-11-30T16:50:00.001-05:00

Allen Iverson, his agent and his manager sat down with four 76ers reps in Dallas this afternoon to discuss a potential return to Philly for the aging star -- perhaps the only place where the aging star with the sullied rep could possibly play at this point.

It wasn't a surprise to hear that GM Ed Stefanski, coach Eddie Jordan and assistant GM Tony DiLeo were at the meeting. The name that was interesting is assistant coach Aaron McKie, who had his crumbling NBA career revived when Larry Brown acquired the Temple product and found a way for him to thrive playing alongside The Answer.

Now it is McKie who is playing a significant voice in whether the Sixers sign Iverson. If they do, McKie would serve as an incredibly crucial conduit between AI and Jordan, who doesn't have any rapport with Iverson.

If Iverson returns to Philly and can perform well and fit in well, much of the credit for making it work almost certainly would go to McKie, and that could give a big boost to his coaching reputation.

Stay tuned.

Speights lost for rest of 2009

2009-11-15T18:01:00.000-05:00

Marreese Speights has an MCL tear that won't require surgery, but will sideline him for 6-8 weeks, which means we'll see you in 2010, kid.

At least the injury will answer this: What does Elton Brand have left in him? There will be no more fourth-quarter benchings, no more looking over his shoulder to see if Speights is going to glean minutes away from him. The Sixers need their $80 million man to start earning his checks, and this is his time to prove he isn't washed up.

G.M. Ed Stefanski has no plans to pick anyone from the scrap heap, so Jason Smith probably will get 15-20 minutes per night, and you might even see Primoz Brezec in a game or three.

76ers- Bucks pregame

2009-10-30T18:39:00.000-04:00

Since the Bucks don't have the most gifted frontcourt in the world, the Sixers will have rookie Jrue Holiday active and available to make his first NBA appearance. Center Primos Brezec will be in streets.

Asked Eddie Jordan if, since Marreese Speights is clearly not a center and is substandard defensively at every position, he ever would pair Speights and Sam Dalembert. That would seem to be the best frontcourt pairing for Speights, since Dalembert can guard a center and at least has a shot of offering some weakside help if Speights is backed to the rim by a power forward. Jordan said he did have them on the court together a couple of times this preseason (not that I ever recall seeing) and that .... well, he could do that.

That didn't exactly sound like a promise. Which means Speights likely will play more center, and if that continues to happen, it's going to be a long season.

Welcome to the Terrordome

2009-10-30T12:15:00.000-04:00

... and by that I mean the Sixers blog with that snazzy name (not my idea ... about to see if I can use my powers to blow up that name).

Just a quick hello post. I'm back on the Sixers beat after a 7 1/2-year exile on the Phillies beat. The first season I was off the Sixers beat they went to the NBA Finals. The first season I was off the Phillies beat, they won the World Series. So, basically, I'm the Grim Reaper. And it makes that Public Enemy song title kind of fitting.

As for the Sixers ... I predicted 48 wins from them. One game in, I am not feeling great about it. I have some major reservations about the leadership on the team that I will detail a little more in columns and on this blog.

First little scoop: Lou Williams is illin'. Missed shootaround this morning, although he insists he'll be OK to start tonight. Have to see if he got his H1N1 shot. You'd think seven figures would buy you some of that.