0-4 and counting

Aaaaaahhh, I love these situations ! I just thrive in them !!!

They are the best for a blogger also… and definitely the perfect ones for a Sixers blog.

So my beloved Sixers dropped their fourth preseason game, this time vs Utah, and are  0-4 overall now, already at the bottom of the conference.

Read it again, the key word in the previous sentence is “preseason”. What should this word tell us? That IT DOESN’T COUNT, right?

Uhm no, not in the Sixers world at least. Sixers fans are those that like to push the button in the picture even for the Summer League, imagine now… and imagine  Sunday night, when our record will be 0-5 after the more-than-likely loss vs the 3-0, top ranked, ass kicking, future champs Boston effin Celtics.

But this is Negadelphia, and this is the time when the average Sixers fan gives his best (?). So comments usually go from “We suck” (the most balanced ones) to “X is a bum”, “Y is overrated”, “Why did we keep Z?” (the analytical ones) up to “We will end 0-82″ (the pessimistic ones, almost complaining that the NBA doesn’t have a 162 games season, in order to go 0-162).

Kobe a Sixer? Boooooooooooooooooooooo….

Jerry Buss is apparently considering offers for Kobe Bryant.

So what? This is a Sixers blog, and I am a proud Lakers hater. And this is the second consecutive post about Kobe.

Also, NONE of the rumours I’ve read after the news was released mentioned the Sixers  (surprised? LOL) - even if, according to some special Sixers4guidos sources, Billy King is working at an offer that would send the Wachovia center, the #6 retired jersey and the 1983 ring (!) to the Lakers for “the Mamba”*.

But seriously, the questions I would like to put are:

1) should the Sixers try to get Bryant? 

2) would he be a good fit in Philly?

My answers are NO and NO. And here is why

1) Sixers are (finally) building for the long term. They (apparently) have taken a direction: ther clearly ARE NOT contenders now, won’t be so for the next 2-3 years, but they are ok with this idea because they see it could pay back later. And I am ok with it too. 

Bryant is the player to get if you want to (pick one of the following):

Serbian symbol reunites Kobe & Shaq

(Thought this could be funny..) 

If you think they didn’t/don’t get along, you are wrong.

Kobe Bryant & Shaquille O’Neal actually found something in common, the passion for lovely Serbia and one of its traditional national symbols, “tri prsta” (=three fingers):

Here is proof n.1:

Bad NBA habits

A discussion I had with poster “Ayatollah” on the Sixers board pushed me to write this. Yes, it’s a typical offseason topic, but I think it might be very interesting, and lead to some good discussion. 

The point is: there are some things in the NBA that get on my nerves, that I don’t like, that I would change. They have to do with the NBA rules, the “system”, and mainly they have to do with the american culture. Sometimes, more in general, they have to do with the american attitude towards everything that is not american.

(In case you haven’t already noticed, I AM NOT american, even if I like, and even admire, the american SPORTS culture).

So let’s start listing some real bad (in my opinion) habits in the world of the NBA.

1) false measures. This is almost incredible. In a business where everything is planned, where every detail is revealed, where you know how much everybody is paid, to the last cent, you can’t know one of the basic figures about a player: his real height. Why? Because in the NBA they measure players with shoes (???!!).

No news = good news?

Not necessarily.

First of all let me welcome some new readers that came across the first italian Sixers blog while I was out and commented my posts: I wish they will come back here often.

So yes, during my three weeks off nothing really important happened, synthetically here are the main facts:

1) Stephen A. Smith will no longer write his column for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Smith, in case you don’t know, is (was ?) one of most controversial sports writers in the City of brotherly love, and a popular tv commentator, covering basketball also for ESPN. I guess this is more news for bloggers and Philly guys than for the average NBA fan.

I never really liked SAS, but I was not such a big critic of him either, he is a talented writer that simply got too arrogant with fame and success. By the way, before starting Sixers4guidos I wrote him a couple of emails to ask for his opinion on Sixers topics but never got a reply. Other Philly based journalists were polite enough to write me back few lines.

So we won’t read his articles anymore, while for sure will continue seeing him face and hearing his - pretty annoying -voice on ESPN (sorry Brian…).

At the end of the day this is really no news, I don’t care that much, honestly.

2) Celtics signed James Posey. Uhm…. I explained why I was not impressed by Ainge’s trades for Allen and Garnett and even exchange jokes with posters and fans that were praising him, but I must admit this is a very good addition.

Looking forward(s)

Yeah, it’s off season and few things happen, unless you think that Celtics signing Scott Pollard is breaking news.

So before leaving for vacation (in the picture, Ricky engaged in the main activity he will do for the next three weeks) I thought it could be interesting to take a look at our roster NOW and try to imagine how the 2007-2008 Sixers might look like.

My take is that we have two STARTING spots to cover, small forward and power forward, assuming that Andre Miller, Andre Iguodala and Sam Dalembert are almost a lock to start at PG, SG* and C.

[*= Yes, I consider Iguodala more a SG than a SF ("a shooting guard that can't shoot", according to a poster of the Sixers board, which is pretty funny but not accurate), if you don't it's ok, but find me a nicer headline for this post, then.]

So here is my breakdown, split into “hopes” and “realistic thoughts”.

Billy King is no Danny Ainge (thank God…)

I apologize, mr King. Time to give you some props. 

Ok, if you are one of the four usual readers of this blog, you know I am a LONG TIME BIG critic of Billy King. I think he is a bad GM and he’s the main guy to blame for the poor situation Sixers are in.

But we have to give him this: at least he never pulled a Danny Ainge.

This is my comment after the Garnett trade became official. I debated this all day in the Sixers board of philly.com and I want to confirm it here.

In a nutshell my point is: no doubt acquiring Garnett and pairing him with Ray Allen and Paul Pierce makes Boston significantly better. But no way Celtics are title contenders now and not even Eastern Conference Finals bound. At the end of the day if I was Boston’s GM, I wouldn’t have done the trade. Let’s see why.

1) they gave up way too much:

You know your team sucks when…

… you think inserting Kevin Ollie in the starting line up could improve it, or when bloggers of that team write serious posts about Louis Amundson.

The situation here is apparently getting tougher, because I DO REMEMBER several posters in the Sixers board at the beginning of the last season suggesting that Kevin Ollie should start (…). 

Now, in the same board, many guys are trying to explain Louis Amundson’s skills (?) and even fellow bloggers I truly respect seem pretty high on this guy and hope he makes the team.

The arguments used were/are “veteran leadership”, “tough defense”, “good distributor”  - for Ollie - and “energy guy”, “shot blocking ability”, “hustler”  - for Amundson.

[deep breathe pause]

Sixers already under .500, panic time

…aaaahhhh, where is dear old John Salmons when you need him?

I took a look at Sixers roster on NBA.com and he’s nowhere to be found. Then I realized he is no more a Sixers and I immediately got relaxed. Whew !! We managed to ship that bum, finally. What is more surprising, this or the fact the somebody else signed him?

This smart thought allowed me to go to a further step: remembering that Salmons “plays” for the Sacramento Kings now. So I checked the Kings roster but among the Cezary Trybanskis, the Christian Marakers and the Nik Caner-Medleys of this world he’s nowhere to be found again. 

At the end of the day the main question then is: how can a Summer League start without John “Summer League” Salmons ????? The king of the useless career high, the sultan of garbage games, the MVP of the off season(s), the star of the “When it doesn’t count” selections. If the NBA was played from July to August, John Salmons would be a HOF, mark my words. 

Still, I read a lot of comments about the Sixers Summer League in Vegas