The Sixers now are facing this unsettling dilemma.

They may have paid $80 million for a player who makes their team worse.

The Sixers blew away a pretty good Phoenix team last night, 109-81. It was their third straight win since it was announced Elton Brand, the teams’ big off-season acquisition, would undergo shoulder surgery and be lost for the remainder of the season.

The team, just as it was during Brand’s month-long winter absence after initially hurting the shoulder, does not look any worse the wear. They continue to run and gun, something that Brand’s presence in the lineup seemed to bog down.

And they just might have an unpolished gem in rookie Marrese Speights. He had a career-high 25 points last night, and seems to get better, and more confident, with each game.

This team looks like last year’s version, which ran a lot of teams out of the gym last spring in a late-season push that took Mo Cheeks’ squad to a playoff spot.

The big question likely will be whether the Sixers can somehow construct a halfcourt offense that will hold up in the more rugged playoffs.

But an even bigger question will hang over this team all summer. Are they better without Brand in the lineup? Did they spend $80 million on a guy who cannot fit into the system that best suits the rest of the team.

It will be interesting to see what happens next fall when Brand returns. If the Sixers get off to another slow start, it likely won’t be the coach who pays with his job.

That Brand new ballgame we were told about? It just might be the same old, same old.