The 76ers season comes to an uneventful end tonight... too bad people are more interested in the Flyers playoff game, the Phillies, and the Jimmy Rollins injury right now. The 76ers will close out their disappointing season tonight in Orlando. With 1 game remaining, the Sixers currently sit at 27-54, bad enough for the 7th worst record in the NBA. The Knicks will finish with a better record than the Sixers. The Sixers can do themselves some favors and not win this game, however it might not be easy as the Magic don’t have anything to play for either having locked up the #2 seed in the Eastern Conference.
The 76ers actually have somewhat of an eventful, strange season that saw ticket prices spike with the return of a fan favorite, and then drop back down to their normal, abysmal level. The Sixers actually entered the season with decent expectations. They had made the playoffs the 2 previous seasons, and pushed 2 teams better than them to 6 games in the first round. They came into this season with Andre Iguodala in his prime, a healthy Elton Brand, Lou Williams supposed to see more time, and youngsters like Thaddeus Young and Marreese Speights supposed to contribute more. Ed Stefanski hired new coach Eddie Jordan to run the team. Unfortunately, the Sixers never quite got on track.
Instead, they faltered as soon as the season started. They never quite grasped Jordan’s “Princeton” style offense. Lou Williams never really fully took over the point guard position. Samuel Dalembert continued to suck. Elton Brand was terrible. Thaddeus Young regressed, but is still young. Speights sat behind an ineffective Brand most of the season.
Allen Iverson was re-signed, which brought a sellout crowd to the Sixers game, but not much else. Iverson played pretty well, all things considered, but quickly left the team as personal issued mounted. After Iverson left, the season was a lost cause, and so we got to see the one bright spot this year in rookie Jrue Holiday, who is the youngest player in the NBA. Holiday has been the only person who has even really tried the 2nd half of the season, and has looked good. In fairness, Andre Iguodala has also played well, and is a good player, but is not the guy who should be leading your team. Iguodala is a very good #2 or #3 option on a team, a guy who can do everything well, but cannot be a #1 option on a good team unfortunately.
The Sixers team is put together terribly, but I think you need to give general manager Ed Stefanski some more time to fix it. You have young guys such as Speights and Jason Smith who need to get some time to see what they can do. Speights has shown the ability that he can be a possible solid player, but he is stuck behind Elton Brand. Samuel Dalembert is a clown, but he makes so much money that they have to play him. Thaddeus Young is still very young and has a lot of room to grow, but needs to step his game up. The Sixers won’t be able to do anything this offseason, but should soon get some room to maneuver with Dalembert and Willie Green coming off the books after next season. Unfortunately, for the next few years, the Sixers are flat out a bad team.
