Poll: Are you excited yet?

i say 46 wins. 5th in East. Thad becomes a monster. and elton averages 15-8. Andre becomes more of a PG than Lou. Jrue is starting by the end of the year because he develops and Loe is better off the bench.

and 4th to 6th in the East. First round series goes to 6, with a Sixers win.

46-50 wins. 4th in East.

As an incurable optimist, I believe Brand will regain his 20/10 form, Jrue will become a successful pro, Carney will surprise and Speights will play defense.

I said 7, only excited because baseball is almost done and I just can never get too excited for the Eagles. I expect the team to be as inconsistent as always with a few wins against teams like LA, Boston, etc. and losses to teams like Minn, the other LA, Sacramento resulting in 40-44 wins and probably a 1st round loss.

this deal kind of struck me as interesting. my friend is a bobcats fan (it’s really sad) and he asked me, "would you trade brand for diaw and bell? " at first, i kind of thought “no way!” but as i thought about it really intrigued me. bell has an expiring contract and can shoot the 3. diaw would fit really well with this motion offense, he can shoot the 3 (42% clip last year), he has some nice post moves, he can run, he is a great passer, and he can defend any position. plus the thought of getting rid of brand allows more pt for speights and smith, and would put more emphasis on feeding guys like thad the ball. and best of all diaw’s contract expires the same summer that sam’s and willie’s expires, so the sixers will have a huge amount of cap space that summer.

it seemed stupid at first, but the deal seems a little more appealing now. i know it is kind of pointless to dream about stuff like that, but i kind of wanted to see if anybody else would do that deal.

Which means that I’m optimistic, but realistically not thrilled. Face it, unless a team has a reasonable chance of getting to the finals, you can’t get more excited than a 7.

As it is, to have a realistic chance means being able to beat Boston, Orlando or Cleveland in a seven game series. Actually two of them since you’d also think that these teams will all finish with a better record than the Sixers.

I figure the team will surprise to the upside and show that they are the fourth best team in the East. They will win about 50 games, be more competitive in their games against the Elite teams, but won’t be able to beat out Boston or any of the others.

If the Sixers are within 5 games of the lead at the end of the season, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. If they win a 2nd round series, it will be because Speights, Iguodala and Young are all putting up very good numbers and Brand is able to draw double-teams inside. Then, I’d get really excited. That might happen next season as Thad, Lou and Mareese get better and Andre and Elton continue to perform at an exceptional level.

On the positive side, they have a much better line-up than last season. Williams will speed up the pace of the game and the Sixers offense will get started faster than with Miller. With a starting line-up of Brand, Young, Iguodala and Williams, they are as talented as any team without a good starting Center. Speights and Smith coming off the bench is a huge improvement compared with trying to play Reggie Evans at Center! Kapono can shoot and Rodney Carney is much more athletic than anyone we had last season. Willie Green is now your third best guard and is on his way to becoming your 4th or 5th depending on Carney and Holiday. This in itself is a major improvement, and by itself should translate into a better record.

It’s possible that the 2nd team will be better than the first, since it doesn’t have the Dalembert factor. Which is what I call an offensive black hole, someone who destroys sucks the life out of a play.

It appears that Jason Smith will be able to contribute to the team this season, if he can provide meaningful minutes he might be enough to put the Sixers into contention this season.

All the Sixers needed was a slightly stronger interior defense and and better scoring in the half-court. We now have outside shooters and 3 inside players in Brand, Speights and Smith. But this is the year when they see how close they are and how far. Since this depends on three unknowns, Brand’s ability to score the way he used to, Speights ability to become a go-to post player, and Smith’s ability to do the same, it seems like a real reach for all three to be above average players at their positions.

The closer Smith and Speights are to playing on both ends of the floor, the closer this Sixers are to challenging for the title.

Is Miller that much of a loss when the player who’s taking the shot instead is Elton Brand or Thad Young? We have enough players who can break down their man and draw a foul. What we need is a strategy to attack a defense in a half-court situation, and I’m not sure Miller would have been such a great fit.

The PO is about getting everyone involved, passing the ball until you get an open, high-percentage shot. Most nights we won’t even see it. The team can win just on talent alone. But when they play good teams that force them to slow down, or manage to score on them, they need an offense to generate shots.

Seriously, if Iguodala is an all-star and Thad is a future all star and we also have Elton Brand, shouldn’t that be enough talent to contend for a title?

5-7 all depends on how quick the chemistry of the new offense comes, plus no matter what they will not finish in front of CLE,BOS,ORL, unless one of those teams has a huge injury. Im predicting that between them and WASH and ATL will compete for sports 4-6.