....almost like the team is going to be sold.

--
--
ed

There doesn't seem to be too much hope for the coming season. Billy King
does very little once again in the offseason. My guess is that Iverson is
traded by the trading deadline to a team that thinks it needs extra
offense...

On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 07:31:50 GMT, "Chris" <alephnull@earthlink.net>
wrote:
Zero hope for next season. We'll be mediocre again, solidly in the
middle of the pack. Winning streaks will convince the optimists that
we're on the way to a division title. Losing streaks will convince the
pessimists that we're heading for the cellar.

In every other sport it seems possible to rebuild a team, dumping high
salaries for young prospects, accepting a few losing seasons for
improvement in a couple of years. However with the way this league is
constructed, with the trade and cap rules, it seems impossible to
rebuild a team that way.

That makes it worse IMO. We can't seem to get better unless the
players we have somehow get that much better. We can't make trades,
we can't cut players -- well we can but we eat the salary and it still
counts against the cap -- and we can't pick up free agents.

Swyck

Swyck wrote:



It seems like the league is going in the right direction, particularly
with the shorter contract lengths. As far as the Sixers go, their
situation *has* been negatively affected by King in two main ways:

1) The Webber trade. In retrospect, Petrie just abused King with that
trade. While Williamson/Skinner/and Thomas weren't exactly 'young
prospects', Petrie was basically able to pull off what you suggest
isn't possible in the NBA. The Sixers, led by King, just happened to
be on the sucker's end of the deal. Whatever one may think of Webber's
remaining ability, it was an acknowledged gamble at the time,
destroying any significant cap flexibility the Sixers would have for
the life of the contract, currently paying him $21M a year. Whatever
research the Sixers did both on the medical front and in believing he
could play in O'Brien's system failed, and King is ultimately
responsible for it as GM. One may say the league rules are bad, but if
one knows them and still trades for the 2nd highest paid player in the
league (while already having the 6th), he's going to be left with the
consequences.

2) King has never shown any ability for fine-tuning a roster. He only
knows the big trade. And clearly those haven't worked out all too
well. Since Brown left, the Sixers have never really been in the
running for any significant free agent, and it's not entirely because
of the cap but because it's all kind of an afterthought for King. There
was little effort to specifically find players who would work with the
system O'Brien tried to implement. Meanwhile, last year Korver was
resigned for around $27m (which I didn't find *as bad* as some do),
Hunter was given a $16m contract (which was dumb), Green offered around
$18m (which was dumb, but it went unsigned because of his injury), and
whatever Nailon got was too much.

Now look at this year: with even less cap flexibility, the Sixers still
sign three players:

-Green now gets the multi-year $18m, which despite showing loyalty and
good faith doesn't deny it is a stupid contract to give to a player who
doesn't solve any of their primary needs (perimeter defense,
rebounding, and backup PG and who has never played well in the same
backcourt with Iverson.
- Old Alan Henderson for the minimum $1.2m. A typical King move of
tossing in whoever's still around to fill out the roster. I shudder at
the possibility of seeing Webber and Henderson trailing a solid 8
seconds behind Iverson/Iguodala/Carney every play down the floor.
- Resign Shavlik Randolph. minimum salary, minimum production. Given
Dalembert and Webber's history of injury, it is very likely that either
Henderson or Randolph will *at least* be the first 4/5 option off the
bench. Neither should have more than garbage minutes.

- Despite these signings adding little to perhaps the worst bench in
the league, King *did not use* the $4.5m trade exception he had from
trading Marc Jackson (a move that probably hurt the team last year) or
the mid-level exception. He was even fairly dismissive about it,
indicating that there was no player the team was interested in or
pursued. I take him at his word rather than think it was a purely
budgetary decision since teams have been pretty open these days about
attempts to cut salary.

Now, take a brief survey of some other recent signings:

Devean George - 2 year, $4.2m
Fred Jones - 3 year, $11m
Marcus Banks - 5 year, $21m
Othella Harrington - 2 year, $4.5m
Flip Murray - 2 year, $3.5m
Darius Songaila - 5 year, $23m
Lorenzen Wright - 2 years, $6m
Eddie House - 1 year, $1.5m
DeShawn Stevenson - 2 year, minimum
Dajuan Wagner - minimum

--Now, it's pure speculation whether any of these players could have
been acquired, but with these kinds of modest contracts going around in
general, isn't it at least conceivable that King could have used the
exception to get someone like Wright?--signed Harrington instead of
Henderson/Randolph?--and House instead of Green? And maybe even add
Stevenson with the difference between House and Green? Now which depth
chart seems better?:

_1_
Korver Jones
Webber Henderson
Dalembert Hunter Randolph
Iverson Green Williams
Iguodala Carney

_2_
Korver Carney Jones
Webber Harrington
Dalembert Wright Hunter
Iverson House
Iguodala Stevenson

I strongly prefer the 2nd group, and it is just an alternative approach
I threw together in the last 20 minutes. I'm not saying that the
Sixers should have necessarily acquired any of those players (there are
probably even more appropriate ones I didn't consider). I'm just
trying to show that there are solid ways of filling out a roster even
with the Sixers' current limitations. And if the four new subs seems
far-fetched, take Phoenix this off-season as a case in point. Despite
being openly wary about their salary situation, they not only re-sign
Barbosa but completely remake their bench by adding Marcus Banks,
Jumaine Jones, Eric Piatkowski, and Sean Marks. Pretty slick.

Moreover, while the Sixers are pretty much locked into their first
five, that's not necessarily a terrible thing. Iverson has proven that
he can lead a group of strong role players deep into the playoffs.
Even now I think that if the Sixers were to get bench production in the
top third of the league they could make it to the 2nd round of the
playoffs; and if Dalembert or Iguodala were to emerge as an all-star
talent, they could perhaps go further. The problem is that there is no
evidence of any concerted effort at team building - it's just been a
matter of futiley hoping some other team would give up respectable
talent in a big Iverson or Webber deal that would totally overhaul the
team; or, as King said last year, throwing stuff out there and hoping
for the best.


-IK

Interesting analysis. Now I could be wrong, but my expectation is that
Carney will open the season in the starting lineup, and KK on the bench.
I'm not sure how Andre Ig and Carney will divvy up the 2/3 minutes, and it
may not really matter. It should be interesting to see how those two play
with Iverson. My thought is it could be any where from very bad to very
good, and the best hope for the latter is if the 4/5 guys get enough
defensive boards (i.e., more than last year) to permit AI-Ig-Carney to fly
down the court regularly.

----- Kurt Straub

"Ian Kognitow" <covanus@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1159296359.070678.42110@h48g2000cwc.googlegro ups.com...

Yeah, I figure that Carney will probably end up the starter, but at
least at the outset that Korver would get the nod over the rookie. I
think that it probably depends on whether the Sixers even want Korver
around (it doesn't sound like it from a lot of what King/Cheeks have
said) and how good of a shooter Carney turns out to be. In any case,
whatever defensive problems Korver presents, it seemed that the Sixers'
offense was hurt even worse when he wasn't in because he was the only
person on the team who was a real perimeter threat and could space the
floor, allowing Iverson, Iguodala, and Webber to operate. Assuming
Korver stays around, Cheeks will at least have to define his role and
stick with it, since Korver was awful in all aspects of the game when
he was being jerked in and out of the lineup.

What you say about the 4/5 seems about right. I'd even say that, given
the total lack of bench improvement, one can gauge the Sixers' season
on one measure: Samuel Dalembert. If he can stay healthy (at least 75
games), consistently play at least 30-35 minutes without fouling out,
and contribute something like 12ppg,10rpg,3bpg, the Sixers can still
compete for the playoffs, maybe even win their lousy division. If not,
they may very well end up the worst team in the East. Now let's just
see if he can actually make it through camp for the first time in his
life.


Kurt Straub wrote: