Sixers-Celtics: tonight Game 0 ??

While Sixers’ have still a (slim) chance to re-gain that 6th place in the Eastern Conference standings, at Bulls’ expense, every fan with half a brain already knows we will end up finishing at #7, where we stand now.

After last night’s win over the Pistons, its fifth straight, here is Chicago’s status:

• 41-40 (6th seed)
• ONE game remaining, Wed 15th at home vs Raptors.

While Sixers are:

• 40-40 (7th seed)
• TWO games remaining, tonight vs Celtics and tomorrow at Cleveland, in the second night of a back-to-back, and with a team that is 137-1 at home, or something.

So yes, technically by winning both games we could get past the Bulls, if they lose to the Raptors. But it sounds like saying that there is a chance that Jerome James WILL NOT exercise his player option for the 6 millions he is owed in 2009/2010. 

Reality is, reguardless of the outcome of these three games, we will face the Celtics, that are already sure of their 2nd seed, in the first round of the 2009 playoffs.

So tonight’s regular season game, Sixers’ last at home, will look like an anticipation of the upcoming series vs the “World Champs” (btw I always hated this expression, really arrogant and very “american”, in the worst sense this time. Paired with the Celtics, it sounds even more disturbing, LOL).

It will be a sort of Game 0, say.

Boston will apparently be without Garnett, while Sixers will welcome back Thaddeus Young. That is good news, I just hope Thad didn’t rush his return.

I don’t have great expectations for tonight’s game. I just hope that we win, first because closing the season on a 0-7 losing streak would be annoying (you would perhaps guess that I’m not that optimistic about that final game at Cleveland…), second because it would mean not improving a lick over last year’s 40-42 (not exciting) record, third because getting swept by Boston always sucks, and now we are down 0-2 in the series.

And the memory of that last second loss in the last game vs Boston still hurts, so we should even have an extra-motivation.

I must say I don’t dislike playing with the Celtics in the postseason.

Of course Sixers would be the underdog, of course anything more than losing 4-2 would be considered a fantastic achievement, of course the last time we met Boston in playoffs, in 2002, it ended in embarassment.

But at least we would have a real playoffs atmosphere, and a chance for a memorable upset. After all, last year’s Hawks took the eventual “World champs” to Game 7, right?

So let’s go Sixers, let’s take Game 0. And then Game 1, Game 2….

A nice guidos/Manute story, a W and a 50 W prediction

I am still f’n busy, out on a two week business trip, and it will be like that for few more days.

But some facts made me find the time to write this. In order of importance:

1) this F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C Manute Bol/guidos story, that follows the video posted below.

So I received this email:

Go Sixers!  It is so awesome to know there are Sixers fans all over the world.  It’s hard enough to find “real” Sixers fans here in Philly.

Just wanted to share a cool guido / Manute Bol story with you real quick…

I must have been about 11 years old.  I had just started playing CYO basketball for a church in my neighborhood.  My coach was a real South Philly Guido for sure (just to give you an idea of how much of a
South Philly Guido he was, he was a bookie and he’d be on his cell phone checking the lines and taking bets on NFL games during our games).

He was particularly proud of myself and a few other players after a big win one game and decided he was gonna take us all to a Sixers game.  We were super pumped!  Since he was a South Philly guido, he “had a connect” at the Spectrum.  He got us snuck in a service entrance and we got some seats up in the nosebleeds and we wanted MANUTE!

All damn game we were chanting “WE WANT MANUTE!  WE WANT MANUTE!”  To no avail…  Jimmy Lynam would not put Manute in the damn game!  WTF?

We were deep in the fourth quarter of a close game when we finally couldn’t take it anymore.  We went all around our section recruiting other fans to join the chant.  “WE WANT MANUTE !  WE WANT MANUTE !”  It
started with us, then our whole section, then the whole upper deck, then…  The entire Spectrum!  “WE WANT MANUTE !  WE WANT MANUTE !  WE WANT MANUTE !”

It got so loud that Jimmy Lynam had to take a time out to put him in the game!  Manute stepped on the court they passed him the ball, he cranked his long arms over his back and threw up one of his signature catapult slingshot 3 pointers and SWISH !!!  The god damn crowd went crazy!

It was just the spark the Sixers needed to take the game away.  After that, the Sixers ran away with the game, never looking back and we won.  That is not only my favorite Manute Bol memory, but one of my favorite sports moments in my life.  Had to share it with you.

Thanks! GO SIXERS!

We have to thank S4G reader Jesse for this, he gave me the permission to post it on this site. 

More.

Your usual, idiotic, wrong predictions

(INTRO: “Philadelphia is one of the most popular picks to finish with the NBA’s worst record“, music & words by Chris Sheridan !!!)

The season approaches, the fantasy season approaches, Sixers4guidos’ 1st anniversary approaches – following The Sportshernia. What does that mean? That it’s time to place our forecasts for the next year.

So, a Sixers blog is supposed to start from its team, right? Well, Sixers will end the 2007-2008 season with a 31-51 record in my humble opinion. Worse than the already bad 35-47* of last year? Yes. Does this mean that the Sixers got worse from last year? Not necessarily. 

The fact is that most of our division and conference rivals got significantly better, while we didn’t add any key player to make us competitive at a high level IN THE SHORT TERM. That’s basically the reason why I would be fine with a 31-51 record, but if, and only if:

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”.

Sixers blog(ger)s prediction – Pronostici dai blog (Part II)

(Here we go with the second part of the predictions, from other 76ers blogs, bloggers and mainly from posters of the Sixers board of philly.com that answered to my little survey.

Of course while I am writing these lines trade rumors are getting crazy – a Milwaukee deal that would give us #8, various combination with Atlanta getting us #3 etc… – , but here we are assuming that we still have our three first round picks at #12, #21 and #30 + #38 in trhe second. Just 24 hrs to go …Enjoy !!)

Continuiamo il nostro viaggio all’interno del mondo dei blog dedicati ai Sixers vedendo quali sono i pronostici dei miei “colleghi” a sole 24 ore dal draft.

Le voci su possibili scambi di scelte sono moltissime in queste ore, mentre quasi tutte le previsioni che leggete sono state formulate tenendo conto dello scenario attuale, vale a dire i Sixers con tre prime scelte (12, 21 e 30) e una seconda (38).

Chris di “Huge Tiny Mistake“, un blog dedicato al baseball ma che si occupa anche dei Sixers (http://hugetinymistake.wordpress.com) mi dice:

# 12 Al Thornton, 6-7 SF Florida State (nella foto)

# 18 (scambio con Golden State per Willie Green + 2 seconde scelte) Josh Mc Roberts, 6-11 PF Duke

Secondo turno Curtis Sumpter (un ragazzo di Philadelphia).

Ecco le previsioni di Marando (Rando) Freeman, curatore del “Sixers Journal” (http://the76ers.blogspot.com):

1st pick Julian Wright

Sixers blog(ger)s predictions – Pronostici dai blog (I)

(For non-guido readers: this is a small survey that I’ve made among fellow Sixers bloggers and some KNOWLEDGEABLE members of the Sixers board on http://www.philly.com that I am more familiar with.

Even if you don’t understand italian, it doesn’t matter, just check the predictions about the upcoming draft, it’s easy… then we’ll see who was right. It’s just for fun, of course)

E’ il primo post che scrivo in italiano, lo faccio all’antivigilia di un momento molto importante per la squadra, il draft di giovedì prossimo.

Per gioco ho chiesto ai più autorevoli Sixers blog(ger)s e ad alcuni selezionati membri del forum dedicato ai Sixers su www.philly.com, dove scrivo anche io, di indicare le loro previsioni sul prossimo draft. Fra 48 ore vedremo chi ci ha azzeccato !!!

Partiamo con Jon Burkett di “PASSION & PRIDE“, uno dei migliori blog sui Sixers (http://mvn.com/nba-76ers):

Interessante la sua teoria: secondo Jon i Sixers cederanno le scelte #12 e #30 + Willie Green ai Milwaukee Bucks per ottenere in cambio Dan Gadzuric e la scelta #6. Poi sceglieranno così:

#6 Jeff Green (nella foto)

#21 Josh Mc Roberts

#38 Aaron Brooks (a meno che Taureen Green sia ancora disponibile)

“Passion and pride” blogger Jon Burkett kindly answers to my survey request and says:

Speaking of guidos….

First, let us cheer our friend, and contributor to S4G, Sixerguy: seems he’s coming to Italy for a while because of his job. Well, we hope you’ll like Guidoland, dude. For sure pizza here will taste better than in Arizona.

But while we are at it,  let’s go on with NBA guidos breakdowns, and talk about Marco Belinelli (check out the spell, guys: it’s B-E-L-I-N-E-L-L-I), 21 years old, 6-5 guard from Climamio Bologna, who will perhaps join the League this summer.

He is reportedly a possible late first round pick, let’s say from 20 to 30. This means Sixers, that have Denver and Dallas picks,  could get him. So what kind of player Belinelli is. What (dumb) comparison can we make for him? The next Vinnie Del Negro, the next Todd Lichti, the next Adam Keefe? A poor man’s Scott Brooks? An uglier Craig Ehlo? A white Greg Grant? An italian version of Brian Oliver? Guidos’ answer to Doug Overton?

What we need to get

What to get in the inevitable Iverson trade is up to Billy King. That’s scaring, I know.

But I am a blogger, not a general manager (that’s why both this blog and Sixers suck, by the way) so this is my wish list:

A first round pick is MANDATORY. If King doesn’t get this, fire him immediately, and send him to Italy as next webmaster of Sixers4Guidos.

Actually some rumors are currently talking about the possiblity to land even two picks (from Denver), That’s too good to be true, won’t happen.

We need a rebounding, athletic PF/C who can board and finish. Jeff Foster (in the picture, from the 50’s) would be the best solution. I am a self proclaimed Foster groupie. He won’t come, though. But you got the point. A younger PJ Brown (or even PJ Brown himself…), a Jamaal Magloire, an Antonio Mc Dyess. Stromile Swift anyone? Well no, he’s the Dalembert of the power forwards, we would get a ban from the NBA for shortage of intelligence.

Then we would need a combo PG/SG capable to bring the ball upcourt and shoot it. A Delonte West/Juan Dixon/Earl Watson/Chris Duhon type of player. Telfair, Foye? Uhmm…

What we absolutely DON’T need are: 1) players with long contracts, 2) players with bad contracts 3) swingmen.

So expect a package of Kenyon Martin, Antoine Walker and Mike Dunleavy jr in a Sixers uniform soon.

Angry and hungry

It’s 3-0, then. Which means two things: 1) it’s only 3 games in the season; 2) we won them all. Therefore, we at sixers4guidos are nothing but happy. Happy but nonetheless cautious. We said 43 wins, and we are not going to change our bet just yet. To us, 3-0 so far means only 40 more wins to get to the point where we (still) think this team should reasonably get.

But we want to be optimistic. So let us state that what we liked most of these three games comes down to one thing (two, actually): the Sixers showed us poor dagos from sunny Italy that they are angry and hungry. Angry for all the negative things they have been hearing about them. Hungry ‘cause the bellies of most of the players are oh too empty.

As long as they will keep these two passions and will be able to turn ’em into positive attitudes, well, there will be serious chance that we will be proved too pessimistic and loose our bet. In that case, dear friends from both sides of the Atlantic, none will be more happy than us.

We say: 43 wins

That’s our prediction for the 2006/2007 season that starts tonight at the Wachovia center vs the Atlanta Hawks. A 43-39 record. That would be a 5 W improvement from last year, which ended with a sad, disappointing, almost embarassing 38-44.

It would be also the same record of 2004/2005, with Jim O’ Brien as coach. That team made the playoffs, only to see its butts kicked by Pistons in a 4-1 series that actually didn’t even start. Yes, we know that for most of you/us Sixers fans 43-39 means “mediocrity”. And you are probably right about that.

That record probably means also a quick first round exit playing vs a # 1-2 seed in the Eastern Conference. Exactly how it went two seasons ago with Detroit. This year it would be Miami or Cleveland, maybe New Jersey. All teams that are clearly better than us, and that would surely beat us in a 7 games series.

But we want to be optimistic, think positive. The good thing about living in Italy for a Sixer fan is that we are an ocean away from that “Negedelphia” atmoshpere. So, for us, 43 wins would be a good result not mediocrity. Still a step further, in a good direction.