Can the Sixers ever be NBA champs again?
by chillicothe20 on Mar 23, 2009 10:22 AM PDT
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PrintGiven soman319's recent post about Andre Iguodala, it brings the issue of whether the Sixers are capable of winning a championship. In some of the comments on that fanpost, several individuals claimed Iggy could be a Scottie Pippen-esque player, if he had an "MJ" to play with like Pippen did. So, my question is: when are we going to get a player like that, and who would it be? And at the end of the day: can the Sixers ever win a Championship?
There are several ways of dealing with lacking a star:
- 1) Building around a current player - Elton Brand is injured and wasn't quite the team star he should have been when he wasn't. Iggy isn't the type of player that you can build a team around (not a championship team anyway). Andre Miller is great, but won't be for another five or ten years, like we would want a star to be.
- 2) Free Agency - The Sixers could go out and get a star player, but I am not sure we have the money to get anyone for more than a year.
- 3) Trade for a star - The Sixers have a core of young players, so there are plenty of players to deal, but for who do we deal and what are we willing to give up? I wish the original AI would come back to Philly, but that won't happen.
- 4) Do nothing - We could sit back and hope we can build a balanced team out of the players we have, and continue to draft solid players to further build the team.
Championship?:
With the Eastern Conference essentially the LeBron(and his Cavs) and Boston show (and Orlando too - they don't get the credit they should), how can the Sixers win the East let alone an NBA Championship? The West is even tougher still with the Lakers, Rockets, Spurs, Hornets and the like. Can the Sixers beat these teams on any given night? Yes. We have, and we will again. However, in a seven-game playoff series, the Sixers cannot consistently beat these teams. Recall last year's playoff series with the Pistons. We won games one and three by 4 and 20, with the latter in Philadelphia. We lost games two, four, five, and six by 17, 9, 17, and 23 respectively. Clearly, we couldn't compete every night. This is a major problem. A championship is what we are after, but given our lacking a star and our lacking the talent to compete in the playoffs, that won't be happening any time soon.
I love my Sixers and I want us to win. I remember the 2001 NBA Finals. The Sixers have never been better in my lifetime (I am only 21). I want it to be that way again. Go Sixers!!!
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Nope – never – should fold the team right now – they’ll never win a championship again as long as the NBA exists.
I love how people are ready to give up on Elton Brand already
"Someone created the box score," Morey says, "and he should be shot."
Blocked shots — they look great, but unless you secure the ball afterward, you haven’t helped your team all that much.
by jemagee on Mar 23, 2009 10:26 AM PDT reply actions
Brand.
I haven’t given up on Brand. He really just needs to get healthy. I didn’t agree to get him as opposed to a younger josh smith but now that he is here, we can mold something around him. What our problem is that we need behind the arc shooters. So far the team shoots around 31.9% behind the arc which is dead last in the NBA. They rank 2nd to last in the league in attempted 3 pointers and 3rd to last in made 3 pointers 4.2 and 13.3 respectively. Without an outside game, I really doubt we can accomplish much.
The sixers problems are many – there isn’t just one problem
the half court offense is atrocious
Speights is the only heallthy big man with any kind of low post game or court vision and he doesn’t get minutes
Brand makes the sixers that much better in the low post game
I consider having a half court offense that doesn’t SUCK a lot more important than the 3 point percentage in terms of overall possibilities of winning.
I wish people would stop saying Josh Smith – there was no chance
"Someone created the box score," Morey says, "and he should be shot."
Blocked shots — they look great, but unless you secure the ball afterward, you haven’t helped your team all that much.
by jemagee on Mar 23, 2009 11:11 AM PDT up reply actions
Well like you said, it isn’t just one problem, and again I didn’t word what I said correctly. But yeah our half court offense is pretty bad. The million dollar question of why we don’t give Speights minutes is beyond me. Anything that improves the team, improves our possibilities of winning. In terms of thinking of what our team is now and the effect of additions, presently the sixers play a particular way of basketball are slightly above .500 team but improvement in any area would raise our winning percentage. I hope you understand what I meant by that statement.
I won’t mention Josh Smith again ( =X).
Cause he’s a rookie and because he sucks defensively (Speights)
He’s the best offensive big man the sixers have but defensively he hurts the team usually
"Someone created the box score," Morey says, "and he should be shot."
Blocked shots — they look great, but unless you secure the ball afterward, you haven’t helped your team all that much.
by jemagee on Mar 23, 2009 11:53 AM PDT up reply actions
You think if we could just fuse Dalembert and Speights together into one player, we’d have the “Solution” (I hope someone get’s that reference haha).
Not really – they both suck defensively
"Someone created the box score," Morey says, "and he should be shot."
Blocked shots — they look great, but unless you secure the ball afterward, you haven’t helped your team all that much.
by jemagee on Mar 23, 2009 5:10 PM PDT up reply actions
i wouldn’t say dalembert sucks. there are more than a few flaws in his game, but I’d say he’s an average on ball defender for the starting center position.
by Michael Levin on Mar 23, 2009 8:22 PM PDT up reply actions
Another good post.
We’re finally getting some solid FanPosts — awesome.
That said, I think we’re stuck in terms of a “star”. However; I also think a team with Iggy, Brand and Miller as the main pieces along with a bunch of quality guys who could continue to get better (Speights, Young, Lou, Jason Smith) can with a championship.
The key component is outside shooting. You see how much different the offense is when Marshall’s in there. Imagine if we had one or two more of those guys.
sixers can win tital
they can win if elton brand can get back to near 20 points and get 10 rebs a game and if they can get a real good and consistant 3 point shooter and delembart is one of my favorite sixer player but for a 7 footer he needs to be able to get 16 or 17 points and 12 or 13 rebs and 4 blocks every game brand needs to run the floor hard and fast cause that is what philly does is run,and get a great shooter in the draft, and resign your good players unlike when a i was there and we drafted stackhouse he was doing very good then his contract run out but the gm didnt want to spend any money,when you get good players keep them .philly has had a history of letting good players get gone via trade or free agency,i liked ai but philly was going no where with him,but barkley ,stackhouse,moses malone,and many others in the 36 years i have been a fan and before i was old enough they traded wilt to lakers for a nobody
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