Enough Iverson chatter for at least two days. It’s already been beat to death considering nothing has happened. You have the Iverson lovers who welcome him back. The haters who want no part of him. The happy median who attempt to rationally pick a side.
In all honesty I think ALL the arguments for either side are overblown. The people screaming how it will stunt development of current players and other risks are making a bigger deal of it than it really is. The people talking about the excitement and financial benefit it will bring to the team also over estimate the impact (not as much as the haters under estimate the impact though).
It is what it is.
An act of desperation, by a desperate franchise looking to add some pepper to the bland dish they keep serving us.
Besides that this article gives off a ton of mixed signals. Nothing is imminent or schedule with Iverson? Jordan talking positively about the roster? Players would welcome A.I. back, particular Iguodala? Check it out.
But the current cast of scrubs still have to ball and still need to fight for a win. They have the first game in the Texas two-step against the Spurs who have Tony Parker back, are 7-2 at home and have won 4 in a row.
Here is the good news
- The Spurs are not shooting the three as well as they did last season. The main reason, Roger Mason (who isn’t likely to play tonight) is starting the season cold and they inserted two low percentage shooters in Jefferson and Bogans into the line-up.
- The Spurs are not a strong offensive rebounding team.
- The Spurs don’t force turnovers.
The bad news
- Instead of pressuring the ball and forcing turnovers the Spurs just play staunch half court defense making you work the clock down into taking a contested shot. Teams only have a 47.3% eFG percentage against them, good for 3rd best in the NBA. Then they do a good job of securing the defensive boards.
- They are still the Spurs and they still have Duncan, Parker and Pop. Those three are enough to beat the Sixers.
Sammy is key. He has to stay out of foul trouble so he can be on the floor to defend Duncan for at least 30 minutes. If we are stuck with Jason playing a lot of minutes with only Jason Smith on the floor the Sixers will get killed. He just doesn’t defend or rebound well enough to deal with Duncan.
Really looking forward to Jrue trying to keep Tony Parker in check. Unlike Mike Bibby who wants to shoot from the perimeter, Parker will look to get by Jrue and score in the paint. This is a better match-up for him since it plays to his strength. Right now he tends to lose shooters off the ball and allow good shooting points to shake free while on the ball. That isn’t as big a concern against Parker who has only taken 3, three point attempts this season and doesn’t shoot it well when he does anyway.
Sixers looking to avoid their 6th loss in row.
I’ll be here chatting during the game.
{ 63 comments… read them below or add one }
Playing the Spurs brings back bad memories, especially the mention of Tony Parker. Another buzzer beater from last year, hopefully we will be on the right side of things this time. I think if we win this game, it will be because of the “Good News” section of the post.
However,
“Instead of pressuring the ball and forcing turnovers the Spurs just play staunch half court defense making you work the clock down into taking a contested shot.”
I agree with that statement and that is the exact thing that worries me the most going into tonights game. We tend to force up bad shots with seconds left of the shot clock, and that plays right into the Spurs’ strength. We will need to speed the tempo up to have a real chance offensively.
Great start Dala. Willie Green starting, my god man.
Thad better rebound going against Dyss
Two fouls on Sam in 7ish minutes. Not good.
Damn Ginobili is back. Wasn’t expecting that.
the return of Bill Green. should have known. defense looks better with him though, probably just cos Jason Smith is not on the floor. playing well too.
let me get this straight, Iguodala drives towads the hoop, instead of just rising up over the trailing defender, takes 2 steps back allowing the trailer to recover and then fadeaway for a much more difficule shot from a harder angle?????? thats just dumb
Young is on. thank goodness.
Blair is a flat out beast.
Defense can’t be that good Spurs are shooting 60% from the field.
ok Blair is just putting our whole crew on the ground.
Straight monster blair is. He is Dennis Rodman like.
Yeah Blair was an absolute steal. Pop & company get draft steals every year it seems.
Sam is the only one rebounding right now.
Jrue needs to attack the rim there and get fouled at least. Soft left hand spin shot is weak.
everyone wants to run, no one wants to rebound.
Sam has really been doing his job lately. Block shots and rebound.
What the hell? Carney 0-5 in 7 minutes?
Sam 8 boards and 2 blocks in 13 minutes.
A lot of people have been hopping on the Jason Smith train, but he fouls just as much as Sammy. And Sam keeps rebounding like he has so for this game, it’ll be big for us.
Jason Smith brings energy and hustle but just like Willie Green that doesnt automatically make him a better option than anyone.
BudWeiser commericals are becoming more chauvinistic and phallo-centric by the minute.
we should fire hip-hop and make mark Zumoff our mascot. between him and the pahanatic, dunno who has more enthusiasm.
wow Sammy’s imaginary telekinetic arms just fouled Duncan
Did you guys see Sam do the Hakeem Olajuwon shake on Duncan. lol
Willie Green is the ultimate feast or famine player. When he is hot he can score a lot because he is going to jack it up. But when he is off he can kill a team.
Wow, perimeter defense does it to us again.
Can’t finish out quarters
Dajuan Blair has 10 boards in 11 minutes. No Sixers other than Sam has more than 3 boards.
In fact the Sixers minus Dalembert only have 13 total rebounds. What a joke.
where is Holiday???????
why is Willie Green still in????
seems Parker doesnt trust his shot anymore, or he wants to win the assists title.
Why has Willie taken 16 shots? Why has Iguodala taken 5 threes? Why does Thad only have 8 shots?
What the fuck kind of shot was that Iguodala. He is a damn clown! He clears out the side to take that shot?
My god and people are worried about Iverson? Give me a break.
re: Why does Thad only have 8 shots? — see why is Holiday off the floor?
Yeah Sammy. Great game by him.
Carney has 9 shots in 13 min.
He’s made one.
Sammy!!!!
Sam is working his ass off. He is really leaving everything on the floor.
current lineup- PG Iguodala SG Kapono SF Carney PF Young C Dalembert
Omg Iguodala.
i guess those careless Holiday turnovers doomed him. seems he’s not getting any daylight tonight.
guess its left to frenetic Iguodala and mellow Willie Green will captain this ship to the finish line.
Stupid shot
Parker would rather pay a fine than take a jump shot.
This team doesn’t know how to win.
Stupid shot #2, cleaned up by Sam. We would be getting destroyed in not for Sam’s effort tonight.
sad this is that even thought its a close game;
-we still played badly
-we still lost
-nothing changes.
ltr guys
Eddie Jordan just said the Iverson rumor doesn’t have any legs in his post game press conference.
Posturing?
how bad is this squad? i’ve never taken days off from watching basketball over my thanksgiving break from school, but this year i found myself too busy to watch any basketball whatsoever. definitely not due to turkey/family either.
Dannie, can you post a poll on this site ? Maybe like the ones at ESPN where it tags what state you are voting from. Anyway I’d like to see A.I. come back ’cause yes the current product on the floor is boring.
Mike – We have a A.I. poll up already. I don’t think showing state has much value since more than 50% of our visitors are from the Tri-state area.
Dannie, watching Thad [20 ppg. on above 50% shooting] in the last 5 games makes me wonder if he is anything more than what Kapono is, an instant offense guy that does nothing else. He is only 21 but being physical and good defensively should be shown in glimpses with the minutes he is getting. Did you see Brian!s numbers on Depressed Fan with Iggy and Jrue defending Parker, cuz evidently our coaches don!t look at them and Sam sure loves playing Duncan it seems.
Suede – Yes I saw Brian’s numbers. Not really surprising. Willie Green isn’t that good a defender. And I’ve been saying since we hired this dude that defense was going to suffer. This team wasn’t good to begin with but now it’s even worse. Eddie Jordan is a moron plain and simple.
Same with Thad. Been saying this for a while with people getting all riled up because I wasn’t riding the golden boy’s hype.
He played what 42 minutes and started at PF and had 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 0 free throw attempts, 0 steals, 0 blocks, 0 turnovers and 0 fouls. The fouls is alarming to me because it clearly means he isn’t mixing it up at all.
Also its getting increasingly clear to me that he and Iguodala can not and will not be able to coexist long-term together playing heavy minutes together. He is way too passive and lacks the ball skills to be a take over the game type player. He has to wait for someone else to feed him the ball. When they don’t he disappears for long stretches.
Last night Iguodala waved Thad off out of the post to either post up himself or go iso on numerous occasions. Do you think he would to Dala or any teammate and say “yo I had Blair on me, give me the damn rock.” Never. Thad needs a point guard on the floor who is pass first and can set him up and keep feeding him when he is hot. The current Sixers don’t do that at all. Thad could go on a run and score 10 straight and instead of going with him until he is stopped some knucklehead with do something stupid like take a contested 20-footer.
jjg, this is extremely belated, but I’d always wanted to get back to you regarding this comment:
Zack, I question the reliabilty of 5-man unit data. What kind of time span of togetherness qualifies a “unit”? Are minimal numbers extrapolated? At what point in the game were the units functioning? Did the combinations exist in winning or losing efforts? Was opponent resistance standard for all measured units? Spread sheets spread some truths, miss others.
Supposedly, all these advanced NBA statisticians account for all the above variables in one way or another. As for my take on the newer, more advanced NBA statistics, here are two quick thoughts:
* I think the NBA is too much like jazz – or music in general – for it to work in a vacuum; sure, you can program a computer to play chess, but can you program it to compose music, create an NBA team for you, or coach one? I don’t know if that’s a perfect analogy, but there are so many factors involved in creating a winning team, or getting performance out of a player. For example, do you – or anyone else – get the feeling that Sammy D doesn’t like to play with Brand? If that’s true (and I think it is, BTW), then doesn’t that mess up your basketball spreadsheets enough to render them useless? Just like when you hear a piece of music that doesn’t work and you just know, you see things on the court and you just kind of know – that junk ain’t gonna work. It was like Pat Gillick just knowing that Bobby Abreu wasn’t gonna be part of a championship team, at least not in Philadelphia.
* An NBA team can have a warehouse of servers full of convoluted statistics and calculated probabilities, but if Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich are prowling the sidelines on the other end of the court, you’re probably going to lose your playoff series. I would say that even Mike D’Antoni with the right roster could beat you, and Jerry Sloan could beat you 4 out of 7.
I’m all for bringing back Ai. I know that’s been beaten into the ground just adding my two cents. IF the Sixers go 0-17 on this losing streak will Eddie Jordan get Frank’d? How many games will Mr. Softie Elton Brand miss on this Texas swing? Their best player this season is out up to 8 weeks and this team still can’t defend properly. They always seem to double team the wrong guy on the floor. Some coaches just can’t coach good basketball.
Carney can’t play, Brezec stinks, Dala continues to have an incredulous look on his face after every bad play with his hands up. Ivey can’t play and Jrue doesn’t get enough burn. Is the Princeton offense primarily the 3 man weave at the top of the key? Cause that’s all they seem to do. Last back door pass thrown was by Sammy and it was a turnover. This teams play is like watching paint dry.
Dannie, rather than adding players a change in coach, to me, would benefit this team the most. Is Jordan!s deal that bad that firing him isn!t a possibility or does E.S. feel he may get fired along with him.
Suede – Upgrading players benefits the team more than anything always.
Changing the coach mid-season to someone you plan to keep long-term is tough and rarely happens and when it does it’s the result of the interim coach staying on. When was the last time we you saw a coach get fired in season and the club hired an outside coach to come in?
If they fired Jordan I fully expect one of the assistants to take over or Tony Dileo again.
How much good would that really do with this team that doesn’t play defense?
My point is that changing players, especially to fit this coach and system, to me is not an option. I would rather find a coach that respects the other end of the court and than weed out the players not willing to give defensive effort.
I don’t think its effort I think its coaching philosophy. A lot of these coaches were part of other coaching staffs in previous years. They seem to bring back the same guys that worked together. I keep saying they need to blow up this entire staff. I wouldn’t mind going with a college coach at this point.
I think people overestimate the overall talent on this team regardless of the coach.
I think people overlook the fact that motivation is not something a coach does to a player it’s something a player already has (hopefully) and the coach’s job is only to identify it and help the player use it to play better (i.e. All of Phil Jackson’s challenges and zen master crap).
I question many of the players on this teams heart, drive, motivation and will to win. Either you want to win or you don’t. Either you are willing to do whatever it takes or you don’t. Either you are about yourself or you are about your team. Either you want to play defense or you don’t. Either you focus or you don’t. It’s a player choice. Our players consistently make the wrong choices.
Eddie Jordan is not a championship caliber coach in my opinion. If he was coaching the Lakers I am sure they would still get to Western Conference Finals at least. It’s about players. If the Sixers had better players they wouldn’t be 5-12 right now plain and simple. A team with Kobe, Gasol, Bynum etc. etc. could beat the Sixers with no coach.
I hate Jordan and I think he sucks in a big way. But he isn’t the biggest of all the problems. The players are. They aren’t good enough. Sure Jordan is not maximizing them at all. But if he did then what? First round playoff win with this roster – maybe?
Need better, smarter, more committed players.
Iverson progress?
Re: Iverson Progress?
Just read that too. God, I hope so. I think it was a good move taking McKie along for the meeting.
I think people overestimate the overall talent on this team regardless of the coach.
Dannie, the feeling I get is not that people are overestimating the talents of these guys, it’s that we’re looking some of that sports magic with this team, some sort of out-of-left-field move that will make this team better. Because that’s how the good stuff starts, no one is ever able to predict the good stuff, it usually just comes out of nowhere, like this team making a run in 07-08 after the Korver trade. Think about how simple that was – we lose talent and we immediately become a better team, and for 2+ months we’re one of the best teams in the NBA. And again, I think this was Stefanski’s biggest goof – not figuring out what happened that season and building on it.
Anyway, I think it’s not overestimating the talent level – I think it’s that people have these sports miracles in the back of their minds, and are just being hopeful there’s one right around the corner for this team.
Zack - I actually have a whole post written about the “magical” 07-08 team. I will post it once we hit the 20 game point. I have thoughts.
And sure I get the sports miracle. That miracle would be some magic that lands us Chris Paul or Dwyane Wade or the #1 pick in a draft with a unquestionable stud on the board that year.
Not wishing this cast of clowns actually figure out how to play basketball.
Zack: The mistake was not hiring a defensive minded coach, and being terribly terribly wrong about Brand’s ability to recover from his injury. Not too complicated.
I really wonder how low the team can finish this year. They currently have the 4th worse record- and a lot of their wins have been lucky against a weak schedule. Conventional wisdom is that they have too much talent to finish with a bottom 6 record, but with injuries and lousy coaching you never know…
I’m not for tanking, but if this team somehow did end up with a bottom 6 record it could be a franchise saving outcome. You never know with the draft, but that gives you a legit shot at landing a superstar (esp since you could win a top 3 pick.) I look at the decent 19-25 year old complementary talent on this roster and believe that adding a superstar could mean being a contender in 3 years… although it would take some serious good luck.
In fact I can’t see any other plausible way this team becomes a contender in that timespan. Certainly not by adding a 34 year old fomer superstar.
Dannie, Morty, you two seriously know for sure? More power to you then, ’cause I don’t.
Dannie, instead of in-hindsight observations of what happened, can you come up with something with predictive power along the lines of: “How to Spark Your NBA Franchise on an Amazing Run by Trading Away One of Your Players and Getting a Slow Euro and a Draft Pick in Return”. THAT would be impressive. You can never, ever know where the really good sports stuff comes from, and what form it will take. Sports would be boring otherwise.
Zack: wasn’t trying to be snarky, so my bad if it came off that way. But yes, I do believe those 2 reasons are the Stefanksi goofs. Essentially misreading the strengths of the team, especially when it came to choose his own coach.