With 13 games remaining the Sixers find themselves just three games behind the Hawks for the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference Playoffs, and a less unfavorable first round match-up with the Orlando Magic. The Magic are a superior Eastern Conference team, but they're no Heat or Bulls or Celtics. The best chance the Sixers have of winning their first playoff series in eight years is by playing Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic for the second time in three years. 

But the Hawks aren't the only team the Sixers must outlast to obtain the fifth seed. The seventh-seed Knicks sit a miniscule half game behind the Sixers for the sixth seed, and like the Sixers, have 33 losses.

Can the Sixers hold off the Melo-full Knicks and catch the Hawks simultaneously? After the jump we'll take a look at the remaining schedules of all three teams.

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If the word "Prize" in that headline didn't excite, you probably don't have a soul like Sayid in the final season of LOST.  If the word "Contest" doesn't get your hammock swingin, then you probably just don't like contests.  If both of those are true, this probably isn't the post for you.  However, a recent scientific survey that I made up for the purposes of this post says that 99.43% of all people start drooling when they see a prediction contest is going down.  Clean the saliva off your computer, it's time to get down to business for the first ever Liberty Ballers Official Prediction Contest (sponsored by Gilbert Arenas' recently shaved emo beard)!

The contest will concentrate on a variety of different situations that you, the commenter, will predict the outcomes for.  It's simple, each category you get right, you get a point (unlike Huh, That's Cool!).  The commenter with the most amount of available points at the end of year wins a spectacular prize yet to be determined (most likely a fancy t-shirt or signed headshot of Jordan).  Doesn't this sound like a grand ol' hoedown? 

All you have to do to enter the contest is post your predictions in the comments section and I'll keep track of the rest. The season begins in less than a week, so let's hop to it. The categories wait for you after the jump.

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It's the back end of August and real basketball is still two months away. So what else is there to do besides everybody's 4th favorite verb: Speculate!?

Quick background before we get into it -- Melo is a free agent after this season and if he doesn't sign a new deal this summer, he's expected to walk. So the word is that the Nuggets are scoping out the market for him before the season. ESPN recently ran something like an article that polled their experts as to where Carmelo Anthony will land by trade before the season or free agency next summer. While the Knicks, Nuggets, Nets, Bulls got votes, the Sixers did not.

Find out why this is unsurprising but a little possible after the J.

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Greetings Magellans, from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I'm still in the early stages of my west coast road trip, but the place we're crashing in has internet access so I'm slipping on to get some late night postage for your sick enjoyment. Early road trip note: The Old Fashioned in Madison, Wisconsin is terrific. Get the chicken-fried steak and thank me later.

A few weeks ago, the Denver Nuggets decided not to renew Mark Warkentien, their Vice President of Basketball Operations since 2005. I rarely give individuals credit for the moves of the entire front office resulting in team success. A lot of it is luck by winning the lottery or total misfortune when a guy can't stay healthy. Either way, I view it as a team effort in the same way Tony DiLeo is largely responsible for the draft. Stefanski shouldn't be praised for drafting Evan Turner, nor should he be condemned for Elton Brand's injury problems when, at the time, signing him was the right call providing he was healthy enough in his physical.

But at least some props deserve to be thrown the way of the 57-year-old executive from Indiana. And if Ed Snider patience wears thin with Stefanski early on, I'm throwing my support behind Wark to take the reigns.

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Happy Tuesday, malcontents. With some of the more important games on the docket to be announced shortly in what ESPN has been shaft-strokingly calling their own "Selection Show" (Greg Gumbel should sue), I figured it's worth wasting a day's post on what to expect or a prediction, if you will.

Last season, the Sixers weren't exactly thrust onto the national stage a ton of times save for a last-minute Grateful Dead Allen Iverson reunion tour. Now with the number two pick, an exciting young point guard, Doug Collins on the sideline, and an Olympic Team contributor, they stand to gain probably nothing at all. But what is this blog if not a reflection of the self-aggrandizing nature of this team? (Answer: idk?)

I'm gonna go ahead and take a stab at which games will be televised. Keep in mind that no dates/times/opponents have been announced yet.

Nationally Televised Games

Wednesday, December 8th, 7:00 PM: Sixers @ Wizards - Evan Turner vs. John Wall. If this was wrestling, Stern Cold would make this a triple threat match with Derrick Favors. But it's not, so a top 2 pick showdown will have to suffice. Depending on matchups, there's a good chance ET could cover Wall on defense a few minutes when Jrue Holiday needs a rest or if Gilbert Arenas commands a switch. We'll see how that works, but mark this game down on your figurative schedule. There's only a few things the schedule-makers love more than a top pick gunfight. One of them is ice cream.

Sunday, February 6th, 3:00 PM: Heat @ Sixers - Philadelphia is still a big enough market that fans would flock to the recently-anointed Wells Friggin' Center to see WaBrosh behead the soon-to-be-flailing Sixers. And since approximately 85 of Miami's games will be televised, I see no reason for a Sunday game in snowy February to be kept off the schedule. Plus, who won't want to see Mike Miller and Jason Kapono play 48 minutes of hellish defense against each other?

Friday, March 18th, 8:00 PM: Whichever Team Iverson Signs With @ Sixers - Let's be real for a second. AI is hardly the basketball player he once was, but he can still draw a crowd. While the 14 years of red flags may prevent clubs from signing him now, once the season starts and ticket sales are down, the Iverson Residence will be fielding more than a few calls from restless, empty-pocketed GM's. He'll get his one-year contract on team X, play Eddie House basketball for three months, and call it a day. Before that, however, the schedule bros will find a place to fit this game in against his old boys twice removed in Philadelphia. Bonus ESPN2 Simulcast if he signs with Larry Brown and the Bobcats.

Prediction: Andre Iguodala will do his co-trademarked with Major League "Marbles Dance" at least twice this year after nailing game-winning shots.

I'll be checking in after the August 10th unveiling with a more fact-based analysis of the schedule. If any of these are right, Jordan promises to do a naked lap around the internet. The whole internet.

I'm more intrigued now about Noce than I was when first hearing about the deal. Spencer Hawes was the bigger target in the deal, and he still may be, but I think there's an assumption going around that Nocioni will be cementing his buns on the bench. I've always casually paid attention to him because he seemed to be another one of those international players that would stick it to the Sixers every time out, according to my unreliable eye test.  It seemed inevitable that, like Donyell Marshall and Toni Kukoc, he'd come to Philly before his time was done just because management wanted to stop facing him.

But as I said, I'm more intrigued now, because he has a rare trait.  He can shoot the basketball without seeming biologically left behind in all other aspects of the game (see KAPONO, JASON and RUSH, KAREEM, then go back and see KAPONO, JASON again). His rebounding isn't much of a strength any more as he's gotten older, but he's Scrappy (Doo) down there and on defense, netting him more hustle plays than his deteriorating skill set would allow.  This quote brought to our attention by Edg5 also foreshadows some of our future pain and suffering:

I got a call from the Sixers GM to welcome me. He told me that they liked having me around and that I wasn't just a throw in or some random player, but someone they wanted to have on their team. They told me they want to give me the freedom to play my own way, and I can't tell you how reassuring it is to hear that from the get go.

With a willingness to play anywhere, a GM who believes in the church of basketball sense, and an entire organization/city that claims to have built itself on the T-word, I don't see how Andres Nocioni doesn't get 20 minutes per game minimum.  Do I want to happen? Of course not. This is nothing against Mr. Nocioni himself nor the myriad commenters that he brings to the site. I think he'd be a terrific sixth man on a championship team. A replication of his 2005-06 season would be a spectacular addition for any contender.

But as we've repeated so many times here, this Sixers team is not a championship team, even if we had given some of the yacht-jumping voters today's demand and drafted DeMarcus Cousins or Derrick Favors last month. Noce serves virtually no purpose here, except taking minutes away from Thaddeus Young in a contract year or elongating Evan Turner's development curve. A player of his skill set would be perfect next to Andre Iguodala on the wing if he were 5 years younger.  He's taking up space and I don't see any way Doug Collins doesn't give him 20 minutes a night.

Continuing the sad purgatorial trials of a team caught between mediocrity and rebuilding. Welcome to Rebuilocrity; Population: Half the NBA.

Teams have been preparing for the Summer of 2010 for two or three years. They've done everything they can to make room -- even if it means giving up valuable assets (See: Bulls giving up the 17th pick to give up Hinrich) -- for a combination of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Some team(s) will hit the jackpot, but others (Knicks) will be left with bare cupboards, bad contracts, and a long road ahead. With so many teams posturing for position and only so many "big names" to go around, franchises are bound to be disappointed. 

Unfortunately, or fortunately -- depending on how you look at it -- the Sixers are not one of the teams courting the King and dreaming of teaming him with Wade and Bosh. They're stuck in salary cap hell (AKA Elton Brand's contract) until the Summer of 2013. Let's break down what I think the Sixers should do between now and then, after the jump.

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News will be light as a feather from an infant chicken (chick?) in the next few days until the Orlando Summer League gets going but that hasn't stopped us before and it won't now. Harumph! So to pass the time between your minesweeper games at work, let's get a little bit frisky for Free Agency 2011. It's painfully early, but we started the Big Board 4 years ago and that came out great, right Cole Aldrich?

Here's a list via ESPN of 15 potential 2011 impact free agents in alphabetical-by-team-order:

1. Al Horford - Atlanta - RFA
2. Kendrick Perkins - Boston - UFA
3. Caron Butler - Dallas - UFA
4. Carmelo Anthony - Denver - UFA
5. J.R. Smith - Denver - UFA
6. Nene Hilario - Denver - UFA
7. Reggie Williams - Golden State - RFA (!!!)
8. Yao Ming - Houston - UFA
9. Marc Gasol - Memphis - RFA
10. Michael Redd - Milwaukee - UFA
11. Daequan Cook - OKC - RFA
12. Jeff Green - OKC - RFA
13. Greg Oden - Portland - RFA
14. Tim Duncan - San Antonio - UFA
15. Tony Parker - San Antonio - UFA 

I didn't put in Kevin Durant or Aaron Brooks because I'm pretty much 100% sure there's no chance they'll leave their teams. And I didn't put in Joakim Noah because I hate him about as much as one man can irrationally hate another. But here's a very interesting list. It's not 2010 interesting, but there's some names here that could end up in Philly depending on what happens this season. Let's whittle it down to 5, in no order.

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