We don’t know the answer to this. But rumors are circulating that the idea hasn’t at least been denied vehemently.
The beginning:
Believe it or not, sources say Philadelphia has not completely ruled out a McGrady-for-Andre Iguodala deal, if only because if the losing continues, Sixers ownership may order a fire sale.
Talks between the two teams have taken place but they have not reached the serious stage. Philadelphia hinted at a package of Iguodala and Samuel Dalembert for McGrady. But while Houston loves Iguodala’s talent, it’s not sure such a deal would make it a legitimate championship contender. To take back the four years, $57 million remaining on Iguodala’s contract after this season, Houston has to be convinced it would become an immediate title contender once Yao Ming returns next season. – Chris Broussard
Some confirmation and clarification from Tom Moore:
An NBA source confirmed Tuesday that talks have taken place between the Sixers and Rockets about swingman Tracy McGrady.
An ESPN.com story claimed the Sixers “hinted at a package of (Andre) Iguodala and Samuel Dalembert for McGrady,” though the source said the Sixers “didn’t hint.” – Tom Moore
Finally, Kate Fagan said there has been no movement or conversations on this front in a week.
Okay, those are the particulars of the rumor. The question remains, would the Sixers REALLY trade Igoudala, their 26, soon to be 27-year-old best player?
That sounds like complete desperation right there.
I personally think the Sixers have two choices for turning this team around. Specifically attempting to move from a mediocre .500 team at best to a team we can consider a contender in the East. One does include moving Andre.
1. Nuke the whole team ASAP sparing no one but Jrue and maybe Speights.
- Elton Brand – gone
- Andre Iguodala – gone
- Lou Williams – gone
- Slammin’ Sammy – gone
- Bill Green – gone
- Jason Kapono – gone
- Thad – gone as a sweetner
- Speights – gone as sweetner
- Jason Smith – gone as a sweetner (if he is worth anything at all to some team)
- Jrue – I try to keep
The rest of the roster doesn’t matter since they are expiring, near expiring and small cap numbers.
I go out to every team with significant expiring contracts (Cavs, Mavs, Wizards, Rockets, Kings, Clippers) and look to make deals to acquire them. I specifically am looking for contracts that expire this year so I can become a player this summer. I would take deals that expire in 2011 as well though.
Bottom line, I want an open roster no later than the summer of 2011. Hopefully I have, at least, Jrue and my 2010 lottery pick as initial rebuilding pieces and a ton of money to work with. If I can get $20M or so under the cap I go after every big free agent this summer.
If I strike out, my next option is looking to buy a franchise player via trade using the cap space.
If that doesn’t work either, I don’t panic or overpay for another Elton Brand type player and contract. I sit on the money and fill out the roster with young players, veteran minimum players and 1 year deals above the minimum to guys I can guarantee minutes to. Then I try again in the Summer of 2011 with another lottery pick and my cap space.
Clearly easier said than done, but desperate times call for desperate measures and if the Sixers would actually consider trading Iguodala it means they are desperate. And their record compared to their payroll situation, bad coach and lack of a legit superstar makes the situation look pretty damn desperate right now.
With that said, this is actually not my first option at all.
2. Treat Andre Iguodala like Allen Iverson and specifically build with his strengths an weaknesses.
We all know the story about how Larry Brown surrounded Iverson with a lot of unselfish, defensive playing role players and that was good enough to get them to the Finals in a weak East. The team acknowledged and worked with the special talents AI brought and attempted to cover for his weaknesses. They did a good job that year and it worked.
Andre Iguodala should be a bit easier to build with (key word) than Iverson was to build around. His biggest strength lies with his defense, so in that respect he is the exact opposite of Iverson. But offensively he isn’t a complete bum either. He is a weak perimeter shooter, marginal half court offensive player overall and an elite transition player. With that said, he is a willing and solid passer and a good rebounder who can play SG or SF.
Let me make clear my opinion on the the SG spot. It’s not different than SF unless you schematically make it different offensively, granted you have a player with size to play SF. They are both wing positions and if you look around the league there are plenty of shooting SF and non shooting SGs and vice versa. In a perfect world both players should be the same in my opinion. The SF and SG should be able to shoot well from the perimeter, post up when they have an advantage and create offense via the dribble drive. And as long as size isn’t an issue, they should be able to defend both wing positions as well.
This is not Iguodala so we have to work with what he does bring to the table and what he doesn’t.
Defense is where you start, so of the current team Jrue stays and starts every game immediately. He is the future right now and the team sucks, so there is absolutely no reason not to get him up to speed with game experience right now.
The rest of the roster I still don’t mind trashing for the most part as in the first scenario because there are far to many one-dimensional players and the players I wouldn’t mind keeping are likely the players necessary to get teams to take our bad contracts.
Two questions come to mind:
If the focus of the team is defense is Sammy worth resigning, so long as he accepts a reasonable contract? He is 28 now and will be 30 when his contract expires. But the one thing you can’t say about Sam is that he is injury prone. He’s done a great job of staying healthy his entire contract. So does he have value as a defensive/rebounding center who stays healthy on a team built around defense?
Will Speights be a viable option as a starting PF playing 36 minutes per game given his propensity to get destroyed defensively?
Essentially what I am getting at is do we have more than two core players on this roster besides Jrue and Iguodala?
What about Thad, you might be thinking. He isn’t a starter next to Iguodala in my mind. A super sub? Absolutely. But, ideally I just don’t think he and Iguodala fit well together. Three things I don’t like about his game:
- Not a strong three point shooter
- Doesn’t get to the line well enough
- Doesn’t consistently play defense well enough
I think it’s mandatory the wing next to Thad be a strong three point shooter/perimeter shooter in general. The team is built around defense so that is always a priority. And given Thad is not a perimeter shooter, his lack of foul drawing really bothers me when thinking of him as a scorer given his style of play. Essentially he rarely is helps the team unless he is making shots, since he is an inconsistent rebounder, defender and a non passer. That all adds up to bench player if he stays or sweetner to get rid of Brand or some other player (Lou).
Remember we are building with Iguodala and Jrue as the current core pieces. So we are starting with two strong defenders and rebounders at their position, who are both weak perimeter shooters, willing and capable passers and only complimentary scorers. So we need:
- A wing scorer, who is a good perimeter shooter who is at least adequate defensively
- A strong offensive big who is at least adequate defensively
- A strong defensive big who is at least adequate offensively
Adding those three players along with a half decent bench would at the very least move the Sixers into Atlanta Hawks range in the East in my opinion. Without a super, super star this would essentially be building a team around a bunch of high quality players a la the Detroit Pistons model.
But you all know my stance on building a champion, so the kicker remains: gotta have a superstar. In my opinion one of those three players pitted to be a starter must be an elite player.
Wait a minute what about Iguodala, isn’t he an elite player? Depends what you consider an elite player, to a degree maybe he is. You look at his numbers and they rank amongst the top in the league at his position, save scoring and shooting. I have some disjointed thoughts on Iguodala as an elite player/build around franchise player, but that is out of the scope of this post and will try to make sense of them and post at a later date. Moving on…
At the end of the day this is my preferred way to go. New coach with a defensive focus. Keep Igoudala and Jrue as the core pieces on the current roster and maybe Speights and Sam (if he wants to stay and be a reserve at a very very good price). Do almost anything to get rid of Brand and duration of his contract. Get rid of Lou for sure and duration of his contract. Sam, Willie, and Kapono don’t hurt you unless you really want to go after someone this summer. Their contracts all expire in 2011.
Start looking to fill in the starters who fit the way we want to play (defense first) and fit with Iguodala and Jrue’s strengths and weaknesses offensively.
I didn’t talk about specific players, FAs, draft picks because the post is getting too long and I like to leave stuff open for more discussion in the comments.
Again, easier said than done but something needs to happen. What do you think?
If the focus of the team is defense is Sammy worth resigning??
This guy only plays when he wants to play. Just because he is having his best stretch in 2 years deson’t mean that we should consider making him a lifetime Sixer when his time is up. Hell I picked him up in my fantasy team just so that i could ride this streak until in ends which will probably be sometime soon.
Out of the entire post the Sammy point is what you focus on? So predictable.
For once I’d love some backing to your Sam bashing. Tell me how many NBA centers since 2001 have averaged per 36 at least 11 points, 11 boards and collects 18% of the total rebounds available, 2.5 blocks, 52% from the field, 69% from the line, has 30 win shares and has been able to play 80% of the games in that period of time.
That is roughly Sam’s career production. I’d just like to know how bad Sam is since he is so horrible. That’s all.
Jrue, Iggy and Speights are keepers IMO. Speights shows signs of being an elite PF in the NBA. At such a young age with his size, the ability to hit 15-17 foot jump shots is hard to find. If he gets stronger physically and decides he wants to defend they have something special.
The rest of the team I can do away with. Now I am a big Lou fan always have been. I just think for the make up of this team he doesn’t fit. Unless some coach decides he is a 6th man and that will be his role I’m ok with him. What’s being proposed would mean the Sixers decided to put a plan in place. I say blow most of it up but keeping my 4 above players are the “core” and go from there. Sammy has been great but something inspired him to really play hard of late. Will he continue to do that in the next 5 years? That’s hard to figure
Dannie, we’re all huge Sixer fans, I think Greek is like me in that we don’t have a whole lot of time to flesh our ideas out, so we pick the parts we want to focus on. And this Sixer team and management is making it really hard for us to WANT TO focus on something. If there’s a particular kind of commenting you want, please make it more clear. Personally, I’d like to hear from all Sixer fans out there, I wanna hear their passion, their likes and dislikes.
About Greek’s point – tell me we can win a championship with Sam. The stats are nice, but I think this is a case of looking past the stats at what you see – is he solid enough fundamentally to help the Sixers win a championship with his defense? Generally speaking, the big men on championship teams have been very smart defensively:
Gasol
Garnett
Ben Wallace
Duncan
Shaq/Horry
Luc Longley/Rodman (I once read a Charlie Rosen article where he was outraged that Andrew Bogut promised that he would be better than Luc because he felt it was being ignorant of how smart and solid a player Longley was. But like I said before, I look at the NBA much differently now than I did back in college.)
Olajuwon
I would even go as far to say that he’s not as good as the big men on some of the runner-ups: Rik Smits, Kenyon Martin, Dwight, Ostertag, etc. (but Sam is better than Dampier). Again – does Sam have championship defensive potential? I say no.
Can’t consider Speights elite anything until he can defend. Dude can’t even guard SFs in the post right now.
I completely agree about Speights. He has shown some great touch offensively, even with a man in his face, but he is such a liability defensively that he has to be hidden for his offense to be a benefit. I feel that Lou is the same way, gifted (yet at times completely undisciplined and selfish) on offense, and no defense.
I think its easy to bash Andre Iguodala when you compare his offensive game to the “star” players in the league. But despite his shortcomings, it would be so difficult to find a player that averages 18 ppg (and almost never takes more than 20 shots), 5 asst, 5 reb, 2 steals, oh yeah and on top of that guards the other teams best perimiter player.
I agree that the only true keepers are Iggy and Jrue.
I get frustrated with Sammy’s inconsistency, but he’s proven that when he’s in the right environment he can be a solid player (see 2007-2008 avg double/double). I’m just not sure if something better is available, I don’t think we should let him go unless we find a better option at C.
I like Thad too, but I wouldn’t be upset to see him go as a sweetener in a trade that makes us better…
Speights isn’t a great defender by no means. But look at who has coached him.. Cheeks, Dileo, Jordan. Neither was great at coaching defense. Cheeks wasn’t bad but he hasn’t had a good teacher on how to do it properly. But effort goes a long way. He’s not elite now but 5 years from now were talking Speights as the center piece imo.
I truly can only see this team bettering themselves by way of the draft. Are any of these FAs really going to leave their team? Is Miami letting wade go? Really? Cleveland Lebron? Maybe Toronto and Bosh, but rumors are there will be a sign and trade before the summer. Even if they do there are like 8 teams lined up to pay 20+mil per year to these guys. Granted they are indeed franchise players, but is “Easy” Ed Snider going to allow “Everyday” Eddie Stefanski put his eggs in one basket again like he did with Brand (this can only happen obviously if the contracts are rid of like Dannie proposed). I don’t think so. He would if it was the FLyers, but not the Sixers, his red headed stepchild. My point is that I want them stripped from head to toe like you said in your first option with the exception of Jrue, tank the season, possibly get Wall(absolute franchise guy, I am really starting to like this kid Turner from Ohio State too) and with trades another decent first round pick maybe. Then next summer grab a free agent or two without breaking the bank with the guys this year. I’d love to have the thunder’s team and that is what they have done the last couple years.
Trading Igoudala and Sammy for McGrady’s expiring contract would be terrible. The only reason to trade Igoudala would be if a team also took Brand.
Blow it up? Do we even know what kind of team we have?
Mo Cheeks was fired last season for not incorporating Brand. DiLeo took over, Brand went down. With Brand and Smith back, we have yet another coach who employs rotations that ensures the easiest path to losing every night.
How can you blow it up by evaluating the team as is?
Last season, Stefanski signed Brand assuming that he’d be the final piece in a puzzle to go deeper in the playoffs. Brand is a low post presence who almost guarantees 20 points a night, and would force teams to double him up periodically, giving open looks to the outside.
Has that happened? Absolutely not. Far from it. We’re running a team that plays haphazardly. If Dileo were coaching now and we had this record, absolutely blow it up. But we haven’t the slightest idea what we have. We have players playing out of position, getting ridiculous (if any) minutes.
Case in point: against the Knicks, why was Kapono a DNPCD? Didn’t we get Kapono to win games like that last one?
I wouldn’t trade anyone for T-Mac. I don’t even know what we’d be trading and for why. Salary dump? Why? To make a run at who? What pieces are we trying to go for that we’d need to clear cap space?
Most importantly: are the Sixers planning to build a team in Eddie Jordan’s vision? Or is he not part of the long term plans?
Zach , I couldn’t possible agree more with you. You asked Dannie if we could win a championship with Sammy and to me that is the most important point in why I don’t want him around because we can never win with him in my opinion. Dannie I am wondering if your willing to say that Sammy is a Championship quality starting center.
Also yes I would trade Iggy for a box of scraps called T-Mac just to get rid of his contract.
RRose, Sammy has been playing inspired ever since Iverson came back. If Iverson never came then I am sure that Sammy would still be playing like the thief that took the sixers for over 60 million.
“Are any of these FAs really going to leave their team? Is Miami letting wade go? Really? Cleveland Lebron? Maybe Toronto and Bosh, but rumors are there will be a sign and trade before the summer.”
Just an update on what’s going on with that, per a recent Bill Simmons podcast with Chad Ford.
Toronto is considering trading Andrew Bynum for Chris Bosh. Sounds like Armageddon for the rest of the league: Bosh – Bryant – Gasol – Odom – Artest.
LeBron doesn’t wanna go to the Knicks or Nets unless he’s playing with some talent. If Wade stays put and Bosh re-signs with the Lakers then LeBron probably stays in Cleveland.
If Bosh isn’t traded then he bolts Toronto, LeBron bolts Cleveland, and they both sign with another team; probably not the Knicks because with the Eddy Curry and Jared Jefferies contracts they can’t sign both. The Nets then?
Ford is very very high on John Wall. They talked about how if Utah wins the lottery (they own the Knicks’ #1), they should trade Deron Williams because John Wall is better.
Greek – To your question, yup Sam does enough for me defensively, on the boards, makes half the shots he takes and isn’t horrible at the line for a big that he could be a center on a championship team so long as the rest of the team fits and they have enough offense in the front court along side him. I am not a fan of one-sided players, but reality is most players are and great teams find a way to fit them in to maximize what they do. I’ll end my conversation with you on that.
PSV – Players aren’t good enough. It’s that simple for me. Need to upgrade the talent as a whole and put together players that fit each others strengths and weaknesses better as a unit. On top of that you need to pick an identity and build around that as well. This team doesn’t have good enough offensive players to be an offensive team and doesn’t have the coach to be a defensive team either.
Zack: John Wall is better than Deron Williams? – how many things are wrong with that sentence? i understand that Williams gets a lotta love from the media, but still objectively?
it does’nt seem fair to compare Sammy with championship big men, i think every big man in the league will come up short on that one. the question is not whether we can win a championship; its whether we can even contend first. Sammy is learning some new tricks too, just not fast enough.
Iguodala and Sammy for McGrady is unnecessary. if thats all your best player can net you (an expiring contract), then you are a hopeless franchise. as much as everyone dislikes this squad, we need to remember that the grass is’nt that much greener on the other side. in 6 yrs since Iggy was drafted, he has been the best player on our team (after AI of course). throwing him away for scraps and expecting that we will somehow draft or sign talent better than him is dumb. we got Carney, Lou, Thad, Speights and Jrue by the draft and I think (and this may offend a lot of ppl) probably none of them (Holiday has a very good chance though) will be better than #9. which is sad.
If Iguodala is going, they had better find a way to get Brand in there. period.
Speights is a big man, a position where it is absolutely impossible to hide his defense. if he’s this bad to even start off, do we blame it on the coaches? i dunno, i hope so. if not he may end up like Thad (having holes in his game that wont allow him to be the stud player he was projected to be)
Dannie: i like your build around Iguodala and Jrue idea but sadly i think its beyond that. the large contracts leave no room to maneuver.
its still wortha try, we may get lucky.
Zack: would Pau Gasol love to play Center for the Lakers? sure it doesnt affect his offensive game but then he has to guard Howard in the finals (or Shaq). Last year it really wore him down whenever Bynum was in foul trouble. they need a big banger like Bynum, why give him away for something that will cost more contract wise, and has a similar skill set to Gasol?
1. The Sixers made a bad decision with the hiring of Jordan. Forget whether he’s a good coach – his body of work indicates he wasn’t a good fit for this roster.
2. The Sixers can score points. They aren’t struggling to score points. They’re struggling to stop the other team from scoring points.
3. In the season that Stefanski arrived, the Sixers were 8th in the league in defense. Now they’re 27th. This was before Brand, obviously.
4. The Sixers play in the East. The collection they have now is significantly better than their record indicates. We’ll leave aside Jordan’s overall NBA record and just say that his philosophy doesn’t mesh well with this team. Obviously, we can’t say for sure whether the East will be demonstrably better after 2010. A number of teams are tanking/playing the contracts game but will superstars go to these teams if there aren’t winners around them?
To me, I can’t tell whether we’re one superstar away from being contenders or if it’s worth blowing up. Lou Williams isn’t a starter. Willie Green isn’t a starter. Speights isn’t a starter. Thad isn’t a starter. Iverson isn’t a starter. Yet, at some point all of them were or continue to be starters.
This isn’t the environment that you evaluate players. If you play them out of position or don’t play to their strengths, we’re going to be stuck in a cycle where we keep blowing up the team until the right set of players mesh together.
Who those right players may be still isn’t clear, either. Why build around just Jrue? Jrue has shown flashes, but doesn’t have a consistent body of work to base any sort of decision. Speights can be an offensive beast if allowed, and if his injuries heal. Iguodala is a solid #2, the Pippen to whoever would be the #1.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing, but at the same time I see nothing that proves your thesis either.
In the same building, we saw a coaching change from Stevens to Laviolette make a significant difference on an unchanged roster. If the team is going to be blown up, it’ll be because Jordan is the coach for the long haul, which hasn’t been explicitly stated either.
jkay, bosh would play center, and if he had to go up against dwight – no “if” needed, he has gone up against dwight and he more than holds his own. if bosh is leaving then toronto should try to get something for him, i agree with simmons and ford in that bynum would be a good deal for them.
btw, it’s not me suggesting those moves, i was just reporting what i heard on the simmons-ford podcast, so trading deron williams if you get john wall didn’t come from me, it came from them discussing how good john wall is. i was thinking, would indiana trade danny granger for deron williams IF wall goes to utah?
“it does’nt seem fair to compare Sammy with championship big men, i think every big man in the league will come up short on that one” not EVERY big man will come up short there, will come up short when it comes to understanding team defense well enough to be part of a championship defense
I agree with Dannie’s original premise that the best way forward is to unload Brand at the expense of losing Thad or Speights and then go forward from there. basically paying a price to get a mulligan on the Brand signing. But it might be easier to unload his contract next year, and I’d be fine with that.
The rest of the possibilities and debates about the young players are secondary. Once the team is once again young and under the cap there is no pressure to make the perfect move. They can evaluate what they have and take whatever opportunity presents itself with the draft and cap space.
You can agree or disagree over the remaining pieces, but if they are all young and cheap they all have value. Any of the remaining players (even Lou) would be comparably easy to move compared to Brand. You can even debate moving Iguodala at some point… but again not until you are sure you can move Brand.
There’s a value for simply having a young team? Seeing the Bulls and Timberwolves make me think otherwise.
A young team and a plan, on the other hand… currently, the Sixers are aimless. Being young for the sake of being young isn’t all the different from the current situation.
“There’s a value for simply having a young team?”
There is a value to having a team comprised of young players with talent/value and overall cap flexibility. It allows for the right management to build towards success and/or get lucky in the draft.
Becoming a contender in the next 1-2 yeasr is not exactly an option right now. Your options are down to trying to win with a core of Iguodala and Brand while being up against the tax or trying to take a step back to position yourself to properly rebuild. Neither are great options. Neither have you win the conference finals in the next 3 years. That is just reality.
My concern is that if we keep Brand and Iguodala taking up 50%-60% of the cap for the next 3 years we likely end up being at least 5 years away from having a relevant team.
I would still love this team to be tweaked if a defensive coach was brought in; if we get a dynamic shooter scorer that is willing to defend [Johnson,Henry] at the s.g. position and find a defensive big to team with Marreese off the bench [Turiaf type] either through the draft or in a trade [Willie!s expiring and Thad?] than I believe we could compete. A starting 5 of Sam/Elton/Iggy/Henry and Jrue may provide enough offense to get by and stellar “D” .
Wow, Carney taking it up the floor on a fastbreak is damn ugly.
Does anyone think it’s possible to develop Carney into a poor man’s Iguodala?
Dannie, here’s one thing your post didn’t cover that I’ve been thinking – if we get rid of Iguodala, how much is his production made up and by whom? For example, what if we just plugged Carney in there and said, “do your best to replace what Iguodala was giving us.”
Greek…. Yes sammy is a centre you can win a championship with, he doesn’t take anything away from a team, he anchors the defense changes the flow of the game with his shot altering, hits his shots at a good clip, he can run the floor as well as any big man in the league and he isn’t a liabilty at the end of games when it comes to free throw shooting where he is in fact one of the better free throw shooters on this team.
Don’t hate dalembert because he has a big contract hate billy king for giving it to him, If ur an agent it’s ur job to get the best contract for ur player, obviously sam has a good agent and billy king is a shit gm who panicked when he heard sam was going to meet with atlanta and offfered him a mammoth contract before he even got there.
from all accounts dalembert is a great team mate who is well liked and he is very active in the community and in charity work both here and in his native haiti. You may recall each year he is part of the nba’s basketball without borders program which travels to underprivellaged countries to encourage kids to stay positive and gives them something to be happy about.
Zack, I often wonder if Carney got Thad!s minutes if he could do what Thad does for this team but Iggy, no I don!t think Carney is capable to do what Iggy does, and I like Carney. Tk, if you are out there, remember our Thad/Casspi discussion ? Thad definitely got the better of him tonight, if he could gain more consistency ? Jrue has to get 2nd half minutes, the team is just better with him out there.
Casspi struggled tonight, but looked good in the last game. I’m guessing he projects to be more of a role player off the bench, but who knows?
I know Sammy is on the block and Iggy has disappointed this season but bringing in T-Mac doesn’t make the team better this year and when he goes to free agency the question will be who wants to play for a team in the shadows of being disfunctional? To me T-Mac is a broken down bag of bones.
“To me T-Mac is a broken down bag of bones.”
Yes, with a 22M expiring contract. The Sixers want his expiring contract and could care less about the palyer. If the Sixers could trade Brand + Filler for TMac I’d be dancing in the street.
suede, thanks for the answer. It’s just that this whole t-mac for iggy discussion has unearted some real Iguodala fanatics, and some of them are being jerks about it. I like Iguodala, but people being zealots for this guy made me want to think of arguments for making this Houston trade.
One of them is that what he does is really not that special. The Iggy fan club loves waving their advanced stats spreadsheets around like rainbow flags at a gay pride parade, and that got me thinking about advanced stats more. One reason people started looking at numbers beyond the box score is to see what else in addition to scoring contributed to wins or losses. And the conclusion people have come to is that scoring is overrated, while other stats were underrated. But getting those other numbers, don’t you just need to work hard to get them? Kind of like Shane Battier studying for his defensive assignments.
So I was thinking, isn’t an Andre Iguodala-type player something that teams can easily create? You scout for a certain player and get him; then you ask him to generate Andre Iguodala-like production: fastbreak points, limit your TOs, drive and kick, rebound, play good team defense, etc.
I think this is something the Philly fan base can sense about him and why this town is so divided over the guy – there’s no otherwordly, superstar talent there, he’s just this hard-working, blue-collar type of player; but he acts like he’s got some sort of supreme basketball talent, and feels like he’s one of the NBA’s elite, that he’s the “star” of this franchise (he should check out how many more votes Iverson has than he does). So it’s interesting that a player like him isn’t loved by Philadelphia; I think if he had more of Chase Utley’s demeanor, or even Willie Green’s, then I think he would’ve won more of Philly over.
Another counterargument: the AI9 fan club is underrating scoring ability; look at the league’s top scorers – for most of them, there’s no way their team trades them for Iguodala. Here’s a generalization that is true for most of the top guys in this league, for most of those top scorers: they do the Iguodala through the first 2 or 3 quarters in that they’re helping their team win in every other way except scoring, jacking up their advanced stats; but then crunch time comes and these real stars capable of taking the game over with their scoring – this is when the true franchise guys make their money. Again, I think this is something the Philly fan base senses very strongly – none of the money invested in the Sixers was put towards talent that gives you a fighter’s chance to finish out games.
So if we can free up some of that money and save it for talent that can, then you know what, I’m all for this trade. I hope it happens just to see the ridiculous outrage that’ll come with it.
Zack, Sacramento , through one draft, added talent and much needed toughness in Evans, Casspi and Brockman and seem on the way up; I am hoping our team can strike it rich this year, it only takes a little bit of luck, like Charlotte taking Augustine over Lopez or Okl. City taking Harden over Evans to get the RIGHT guy for this group. Iggy!s mindset, as you pointed out, is what pisses me off at times, like having to force a quick jumper because he hasn!t shot lately, but he is a warrior and A.I. being here and getting all them allstar votes may bring his ego down a notch. I think we have 2 tough S.O.B. !s as our 2 nd and 3rd bananas and all it will take is a lucky draft to put us in contention.
Sorry for no game thread yesterday. Was really sick all day. Did watch the game though and will write up a quick recap with one major thought.
Zack: ‘Iguodala fanatics‘? - from what i hear, its like no one even wants the guy.
as per this statement; “isn’t an Andre Iguodala-type player something that teams can easily create? You scout for a certain player and get him; then you ask him to generate Andre Iguodala-like production“ - i think what you’re looking for is; it can be much more easily replaced than players with serious scoring ability. i dont think anyone can easily do what Iguodala does, efficiently as he does it too, but there are guys who are kinda in the same mold like Gerald Wallace who you could project (or make, based on your hypothesis) into that type of player if you, say drafted him.
scoring is the rare commodity here. most ppl get on superstars who dont defend but truth is it takes a lot to score points like that esp. when you are the focal point and every other opposing jersey is gunning for you. a pity Iguodala cant give us that.
Iguodala fans love their guy, whether the case is objective or not. …..hey…?
well so much for the Tyreke Evans hype. he took an off day yesterday as soon as he realized, sadly, that Lou would not be guarding him the whole night.
his shot is terrible.
EJ scored in my black book again after he nailed Jrue to the bench after the 1st half. kid was playing awesome, dishing out everywhere and confounding Evans. EJ rewarded him with a warm seat. then proceeded to play AI for the entire 3rd quarter and the earlier injured Iguodala for the rest of the game. and then Lou Williams?