It's been an interesting holiday season to say the least. I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas/Hanukah/whatever holiday you celebrate. While I was away, I missed two Sixers losses. I was far from surprised; I actually predicted it.

As you know, I'll be out of town for the first two of the road trip and I fully expect to come back to a 12-17 team.

The losses included the beatdown in Boston and supposedly the most disappointing loss of the season-- the Carmelo-less Denver Nuggets fighting back from 17 down for a win. From the reading I've done, I'm actually thankful I missed both games. I would probably be as pissed off as other Sixers' fans (You'll see in a second.), but instead, I'm a somewhat level-headed and am finally starting to see the big picture. I'll give you my take in a second, but first, here are some key quotes from other Sixers observers to best sum up the holiday-season-losses (Mainly the Denver one since losing to the Champs in Boston was pretty much a given).

Depressed Fan:

Maybe they aren't being properly motivated, but whatever it takes, someone needs to light a fire under them.

ReclinerGM:

Oh My F'ing God! Are you kidding me. So not only do we have a terrible basketball team with no mental toughness, we have idiots and the LAMEST $80M player I have ever seen in my entire life!

Andre Iguodala is a slug. You don't give the ball to slugs with the game on the line.

Ball Don't Lie:

Yo, Sixuhs. You only have Toronto to beat in terms of the "massively disappointing, only have to look slightly better under the interim coach, while working with huge gobs of excuses" strata. Congrats, so far.

Pickaxe and Roll:

After playing such a solid defensive game it was shocking to see the 76ers just roll out the red carpet with the game on the line.

The Sixers were not done with mental errors though.  Andre Iguodala traveled in the middle of the lane with only 2.9 seconds left to give the ball back over to Denver. 

The 76ers played very well, but they put up two of the worst shots I may have ever seen from the lane.  Mareese Speights, who is going to be a very good player, airballed a dunk attempt.  He tried throwing down a monster one handed windmill, but he was a little too far away and came up a little.  As a result he spiked the ball and it went out of bounds.  Louis Williams, who I think can be a very good player one day too, one upped him though.  After driving baseline along the baseline from left to right tried throwing up a reverse layup that was so far off he shot it on the wrong side of the backboard.  He missed so badly that it did not even hit any part of the rigging holding the backboard up. 

Here's my quick take. As a team, we sit at 12-17, which in case you didn't know, isn't very good. It's clearly not what I expected from this team, nor is it what most "experts" expected. Our prized off-season possession will be sidelined for at least the next three weeks and after 29 games the Sixers are who they are. A God awful basketball team.

Andre Iguodala is our franchise player whether we like it or not, at least until we miss the playoffs by one game, win the lottery and draft Ricky Rubio. Until something drastic like that happens, Iggy is our go-to guy. I don't know about you, but I come close to vomiting when that statement enters my mind. No NBA team will ever win a championship with Iguodala as their best player, and most likely not as their second best. However; that's subject to change if he vastly improves over the next couple years. In the mean time, I don't want to see him get the rock with the game on the line. He wets the bed nine times out of ten. I recommend Lou Williams or Andre Miller.

No matter how unpolished they are, we still have some promising young players. Lou, Thad and Speights are all going to be pretty good NBA players and could be great. All three of them make bonehead plays regularly, but I'll chalk that up as inexperience. These three guys will get me through what looks to be a long second half of the season. 

At 12-17, without Elton Brand and a tough stretch of games coming up, things don't look too good in Sixerland, but no worries. Obviously things didn't work out like anyone planned and as of right now I'm not so sure this team is even good enough to make the playoffs in the EAST. And that's saying something. This however, is the quote that gives me and all Sixers' fans hope.

"You’ll never hear ‘patience’ coming out of my mouth."--Edward Stefanski

Change is coming. It has too. There's no way Stefanski can watch this pitiful team for much longer. He pulled the trigger on Cheeks at the right time and I'm sure he's on the phones day and night searching for something, whether it's a player to improve the team in the short-term or a salary dump to prepare for the future. There's still hope Sixers' fans, at least that's what I keep telling myself, because without hope all we have is a God awful basketball team. In Ed We Trust.

Next up is the Jazz in Utah. And oh yeah, and it's good to be back.