Philadelphia 76ers:
Hoping they can take a ride in a Ford to the postseason

The Philadelphia 76ers franchise has housed some of the greatest players that the National Basketball Association has ever seen. They’ve had arguably the most dominant player ever in Wilt Chamberlain. Chamberlain spent four seasons in the city of brotherly love and was very loved by the city when he and the rest of the 76ers brought home an NBA title in 1967. That team during the 1966-’67 season also had a couple of other great players. Guard/Forward Hal Greer, who won the NBA Most Valuable Player award the next year, and Forward/Center Billy Cunningham. Both players have been inducted into the Hall of Fame along with Chamberlain, Greer in 1981 and Cunningham in 1985. That year the Sixers finished with a 68-13 record and only lost four games in the playoffs on their way to winning the NBA championship. In 1968 the Sixers lost Chamberlain who defected to the Lakers and went into somewhat of a lull. From the 1972-’73 season to the 1974-’75 the team only managed a 68-178 record.

The team did luck out when the got the man that made the slam dunk a work of art “Dr. J” Julius Erving. Erving brought the ABA style of basketball, of running and gunning and throwing down dunks as often as he could, to the Sixers who readily embraced it and flourished with it. The team finished with a 50-32 record and got back into the NBA Finals in Erving’s first season. The team lost in the Finals to Portland and would make it into the final round of the playoffs another two times before the 1982-’83 season. That year Erving had the help of another Hall of Famer Moses Malone for the first time. The team finished the season with a 65-17 record and only lost one game in the entire playoffs that was capped off by a 4-0 sweep of the Magic Johnson led Los Angeles Lakers.

Last season was a disappointment for the 76ers. They saw their head coach Larry Brown leave the franchise and go to the Detroit Pistons and win a championship while they failed to make playoffs due to their 33-49 record. Much of the horrible record is attributed to the injuries of Allen Iverson and Glenn Robinson for almost half of the season. The team also fired Randy Ayers, their new head coach, after 52 games and then brought in Chris Ford for the remainder of the season. The reason that Ayers was fired was because he was losing control of the team. One of the events that signaled the dissension of the team was when small forward Glenn Robinson stopped standing in on huddles on the sideline during games after Ayers sat him out at the end of a game. The team has a long way to make it back to the Finals like they did last in 2001, the year Allen Iverson was named the NBA’s MVP.

In the off-season the Sixers upper management went to work on improving the team. The team made a couple of trades that should get them a little better supporting cast for Iverson to thrive like he used to. Philadelphia sent veteran point guard Eric Snow to the Cleveland Cavaliers in return for forward Kendrick Brown and guard Kevin Ollie. The team also sent big men Derrick Coleman and Amal McCaskill to get Corliss Williamson who proved to be a valuable piece of the Detroit Pistons playoff run last year. The 76ers also signed power forward Brian Skinner who should bring a strong presence to the middle with his 6’10” and 265 pound frame.

The draft only brought Philadelphia one pick and that pick was the number six overall pick. They Sixers used that pick to draft Arizona swingman Andre Iguodala. The 6’6” shooting guard/small forward is incredibly long, athletic and can shut down almost anyone with his defense and long arms. He can fly up and down the floor and will score bunches of points in transition because of the fact that he can jump out of the gym. He should see a good amount of playing time in Philadelphia lining up with Iverson.
The starting five will be a little different next year for the Sixers. The way it is projected Allen Iverson will move over from shooting guard and go back to the point guard position. At shooting guard will be Andre Iguodala, at the small forward will be Glenn Robinson, at power forward will be Kenny Thomas, and finishing out the starting five, at center will be Samuel Dalembert. They aren’t exactly the Lakers last season with four future Hall of Famers in the starting lineup but they should be a mid to low seed in the playoffs coming out of the East.

The 76ers aren’t one of the deepest teams in the league. They do have people there but the talent level coming off the bench doesn’t make people think they are as deep as a legitimate contender like San Antonio or Minnesota. Backing up the guards are Kevin Ollie, Willie Green and Aaron McKie. Behind the Glenn Robinson, at small forward, will be Kyle Korver. When looking at Korver’s stats from last season one can see that he’s a three point specialist. Korver took 327 shots last year and of those shots 207 of them where threes. He also hit 39.1 percent of his threes and only made 28.3 percent of his non-three point shots. Backing up the big men will be Corliss Williamson, Brian Skinner and Todd MacCulloch.

Are you a Philadelphia 76ers Fanatic? Check out Philadelphia76ersFanatics.com!