Here we are, blogging again after a well deserved 9 day vacation in the beatiful island of Zanzibar (Africa).

So what did I miss in the meantime? In chronological order:

1) Iguodala was officially signed to a 6 year-80 million extention (the pic shows that both him and Stefanski were happy for the deal…)

2) Sixers brought back Theo Ratliff, signed to a 1 year contract for the veteran minimum

3) Sixers’ GM Ed Stefanski made a conference call with a panel of selected bloggers.

Brian/Depressed fan has the links to all posts of other sites, Sixers.com has the transcript of the conference, Recliner GM has the podcast.

I had the privilege to get the invitation to the conference from Micheal Preston, Sixers’ PR director (thanks again), but unfortunately couldn’t join it because I was out. I will surely be part of the next one, scheduled… well, they don’t know yet, but it will be before the season starts.

Anyway it’s great to see that Sixers keep us bloggers/fans in such high consideration, and that a GM takes some of his time to talk directly to us. This is something new in the NBA, as far as I know, and hopefully it becomes a trend and eventually a standard for every team. Hats off to Stefanski and the Sixers’ public relations dept for setting up this.

4) Sixers brought back Jeff Ruland also, this time as an assistant coach

5) USA Team won the gold medal at the Olympics in China, beating Spain after a fantastic game. 

My quick takes on the aforementioned subjects are:

1) good move overall, but with some further thoughts. It’s great to have Iguodala locked for so long, but the amount of money seems really too high, considering Iguodala’s poor playoffs and almost the fact that NO OTHER TEAM was able to make him a big offer - that we eventually couldn’t match, I mean.

So if it was Billy King doing it, I’d definitely say he overpaid Andre, but since it was Stefanski… well, he probably knew what he was doing !

2) great move. We needed a veteran back up C, especially after the bad injury occured to Jason Smith shortened the big men rotation. Theo will provide what we need, quality minutes of (still) intimidating presence, rebounding, playoffs experience, hard working attitude. Also he’s a good guy, fans still love him and he comes for cheap… what else would you want ???

3) great stuff. I also love what Stefanski said about Iguodala, Thaddeus Young and Willie Green, read carefully.

4) I don’t know, honestly. Ruland basically replaces Henry Bibby, it has to be determined what happened between him and Cheeks, assuming there was something wrong, of course. Ruland’s resume as a coach is nothing to be excited for, actually, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

5) the final game between USA and Spain was something that will remain in the books, but I think USA team was poorly selected and poorly coached, despite the plethora of bball “minds” working at the project. So I will not follow the chorus of enthusiastic, in some cases pathetically celebrative, reports I’m reading. More to come about this soon.

The more I think about the upcoming season, the more I am pumped about this new Sixers team.

(on a side note, former Sixer Gordan Giricek went to Turkey, where he will play for Fenerbahce… sretan put, Gordane, neces nam nedostajati !)