Those 2 are the best players on their team and their record is 23-14 while the Sixers are 17-20.  Brand has been hurt yes, and you could argue that they have a better supporting cast, but the bottom line is their team is winning games and the 76ers aren’t even playing .500 ball.  So I think there should be no reason for anyone to choose the home team’s 2.

On another post I said I thought IGG was playing well enough to fight for the honor of 3rd best SF in the East, I was wrong Danny Granger is just too nasty right now, but he is definitely the 4th.  Maybe..

Apparently Iguodala has the best adjusted +/- in the NBA over the last 2 seasons.  The names right behind him: Lebron, CP3, Garnet, DWade and Nash.  The top three lead the pack by a considerable margin.

I assume this indicates Iguodala has been the most important player to his teams success over the last 2 seasons.   Whatever it means, being at the top of that kind of link means you must be doing something that is really helping your team.  The only other Sixer that has a positive adjusted +/- over that span is Young- who was #3 in the NBA last year (makes sense given how much better the team played last year once he was inserted in the line-up.)

Oddly, Andre Miller is ranked 4th worse in the NBA! Top adjusted +/-

As for J.O., the Raps would throw in Ukic to give us a cheap PG- but I was only half serious with that trade proposal.  It would take something drastic like that to entice someone to take on Sam’s salary, esp with the trade kicker.

That said, the team has 55M committed to 2010-11 according to Hoopshype.  Take away Sam’s 12.2M and they would be on the books for 43M +/- a few Mil for draft picks.  They have no cap hold RFA’s that year, so that should put them somewhere in the range of 15-20M under the cap depending on where the cap is set. 

Of course more likely they will keep Sam and resign or replace  Miller, so the Tax will end up being more relevant than the Cap.

As for the Sixers being players in 2010 free agency, the Sixers would have $49.9 million committed (if they could somehow trade Dalembert) for 2010-11. That’s without taking into account a point guard to replace Miller, this year’s draft pick or possible extensions to Jason Smith and Thaddeus Young. The 2008-09 cap is $58.7 million, so even if it goes up $2 mill a year — which might be too much — it’d be more like $13 mill.

But, I disagree there will be that many teams who “waste 2-3 years and destroy their team.”  The reason I say that is what was the chance that these teams were going to be any good in the first place?  What was actually wasted?

If you look at the teams involved they are probably in a better situation now having made a lot of moves to clear cap, acquire shorter, cheaper contracts and younger players than they were before. 

Look at New Jersey.  They moved Kidd and Jefferson two core pieces.  They got Harris who is a monster and drafted Brook Lopez as new core players at the two most difficult positions to fill with quality guys.  And moving Jefferson and Kidd actually had Carter playing a bigger role and he isn’t playing to bad either.

The Knicks have players that fit the system their newly acquired coach likes to play and although they still are bad overall, they are not as bad as people thought they would be (just beat the Hornets last night among other strong opponents). 

Not to mention they also improve their team cheaply through the draft by being weaker.

And for the teams in a big market they are the teams that SHOULD be gambling on free agency because as Aldridge said they are have the best chance to land a big time player if there is going to be a change in teams.

All I am saying is look at the actual rosters of teams expected to have a lot of cap space and you see good young players already there.  No one really blew up anything of any substance to gain the cap space.  And by the sheer number of guys available the next three years they have as good a chance as ever in a buyers market to land someone.  Maybe not LeBron, Wade or Bosh but maybe Joe Johnson, maybe Dirk, Michael Redd etc.

Its a pipe dream, but as for the Sixers, if they could pawn off Sam and Miller for J.O. I would be all for it.  That way they would have 18-20M in cap space in 2010 without touching their young core.  Maybe they would be a bit hurt next year, but its not like JO is a downgrade from Sam.  And this teams young emerging core+Brand would make them an atractive destination for FA’s, even if they could land one of the truly big names.

I’m sure that 18M would be able to add some great peices to go along with Brand,Iguodala, Thad, Speights, Lou and Smith.  Not to mention Evans and green would bring 10M more expiring contrcats the following year (in order to exetend Young.)