That sound you heard outside your window yesterday afternoon was the world wrenching itself off its axis because Francisco Elson, yes, Frozone, has re-signed with the Sixers in what has to be the most inevitable news of the season thus far. Without the services of Spencer Hawes and Nikola Vucevic, Frozone was really the only option the Sixers even considered to sit next to them on the bench for the rest of the Lockout-shortened season.
Management will say they wanted a veteran to fill the role. Management will say they wanted someone familiar with the system in place to fill the role. They're wrong. They're wrong because this isn't a role at all. Last season, Darius Songaila (in the same role) played all of 71 minutes with the Sixers. Frozone, when he was here before, played just 4 minutes and 5 seconds - only 18 seconds more than he played in last night's whipping of the Bobcats. That's not a role. That's a manikin.
Francisco will make the veteran's minimum this season, which I believe is just over a million dollars. He will make this for essentially being a tall person and hanging out with the team. He will contribute nothing. He will contribute less than nothing because he'll be eating some of their food and taking some of their oxygen away. This is nothing against Frozone because it's not his fault that the Sixers are willing to give a guy who was never very good at basketball in the first place a million dollars simply because he has played in the NBA before and he's not yet 67 years old.
Signing a younger person would have been a better idea, just for the fact that, being young, they have the ability to harness any raw ability they've yet to put together and become a legitimate contributor. However unlikely it may be that Greg Smith becomes a defensive force now or ever does not really matter. He has the potential to, and that's saying a ton more than Francisco Elson, who doesn't have to play basketball anywhere because he knows some dipshit team is going to pay him a million dollars to cheerlead when their big man goes down. This move just adds to the fact that the Sixers have no clue what the D-League is for.
It doesn't matter. Truthfully, it doesn't matter. It won't make a difference to this team whether or not they signed a young guy or a deaf old lady. They won't play any meaningful minutes and there's a 99.95% chance anyone they signed was going to be a below-average replacement player anyway. The idea that Frozone's going to "help out" or "contribute" or "bang inside" is ludicrous. The Sixers gave him a million dollars because it makes Doug Collins feel warm and cozy to know that if Hawes and Vucevic die in a fire, he can turn to people like Tony Battie and Francisco Elson to play inside.
Isn't that comforting.