Empty the Bench

By: Zachariah Blott

The Philadelphia 76ers are next up in our ongoing “The Kids are Alright” series, where we take a look at young teams who won’t compete for playoff supremecy but who are still very much worth watching this season. Don’t miss the Detroit Pistons and Memphis Grizzlies, too… more to come.

Why They’re Worth Watching: They have a lot of the pieces to be a great fastbreak team. In fact, they led the league with 18.1 fastbreak ppg last year. Andre Iguodala and Thaddeus Young are the very definition of long-armed, athletic wings who create all sorts of trouble in the open court and in the passing lanes. (Watch the first clip from last Friday’s game vs. the Nets; it’s kinda ridiculous what AI does to New Jersey.) They get their gangly mitts all over opponents who try to drive on them, and they collapse into formidable double-teams that lead to turnovers and breakaway dunks for teammates at the other end.

For the record, Iguodala is probably the most underrated player in the league, as he continues to be the type of glue guy who makes his team work while putting up good enough numbers that he’s sorta well known but not good enough to get into the All-Star game, even though he should be there every year. Yes, every year.

PG Louis Williams and C Samuel Dalembert are also terrors in the open court who exhibit speed and shiftiness at levels beyond their positional peers. Williams is finally coming into his own after being handed the starting spot when Andre Miller left at the end of last year. He’s putting up a steady 15 ppg on a team that spreads the scoring around, and his good A/TO numbers have only improved in his expanded role: a magnificent 5.2-1.3 this year. Dalembert is still one of the quickest centers in the league, both up the court and off his feet, where he’s continuing to block 1.8 shots in only 24 minutes. His minutes are limited because Dalembert-of-recent-past-clone Marreese Speights is filling up the hoop in his second season for Philly, going for 13 ppg on 61% shooting (fastbreaks will do that).

With all their length and speed, the Sixers are able to keep opponents off the free throw line (league-best 19 attempts per game) while getting there themselves 28 times a night. Like every decent team with this much athleticism, Philadelphia has a lights-out bomber from deep to can open threes when opponents try to crowd the lane to prevent all that driving. During his seven seasons in the league, Jason Kapono has hit 46% of his 3-pointers—on pace to break Steve Kerr’s NBA career record of 45.4%—and he’s appropriately hitting 45% so far this season. The Sixers play like one of those AAU teams with 6-4 athletes at every position who attack everything (the NY Gauchos come to mind); that’s why they’re worth watching.

A look at the plan and what the future holds for Philly after the break…

What’s the Plan?: If you read everything up to this point, the plan seems pretty clear. Bring in athletes who will gladly sprint the floor for fastbreaks and to defend the hole. Throw in a three-point shooter to keep other defenses honest, and let them fun their way into the Eastern Conference playoffs every year. Unfortunately, GM Ed Stefanski didn’t get the memo team-architect Billy King (GM from 1998 to 2007) was supposed to have left behind. Stefanski quickly dumped $80 million into the lap of PF Elton Brand last year. Not only was the undersized big man coming off a horrendous Achilles’ tendon injury that limited him to 8 games in 07-08 and by far the worst stats of his entire career, but Brand has only ever done well on slow-it-down squads that serve his 6-8, 255 pound frame well. You can imagine how this has gone so far. Stefanski is lucky Chris Wallace exists or he’d be the butt of more jokes.

I’m not really sure what the team’s plan is at this point. They still have all those athletic pieces that could make for an exciting fastbreak team if they really committed to it; currently they barely rank in the league’s top-10 for pace. Brand was signed over Josh Smith, who would have been $20 million cheaper over 5 years and about a 20 million percent improvement as far as fitting the strengths of the team. The Sixers selected PG Jrue Holiday with the 17th pick in the most recent draft; I don’t see how he fits any sort of system they might be building toward. He’s an intelligent defender with so-so athleticism for his position and so-so passing skills – something of a “safe” pick that you won’t be shocked to see amount to nothing.

This team has no cap room to do anything in the near future. They have so much money locked up in long-term deals, they’re already on the books for nearly $40 million to three players in 2012-13. They return everyone next year and mostly everyone the following, so I guess the plan is to keep a team on the brink of being awesomely exciting stuck on the brink for a while.

How the Future Looks: The team has been right around .500 for years, making the playoffs, not making the playoffs, whatever. More of the same is in store for a while. They have that excitement value in Iguodala, Young, and Williams, but they haven’t made a real commitment to being “that” type of team. They go 7 or 8 deep, and Brand is approaching over-the-hill status far too quickly to make this a team with options for playing style or upgradeability.

Another thing that seriously hinders Philly’s ability to get over the 48-win hump (2002-03, team-best total in past 8 years) is their collective team IQ. They turn the ball over way too often, are inconsistent in crashing the glass, and allow absolutely stupid 3-point shooting to happen against them. They give up a league-worst 11 trifectas per game on 43% shooting from downtown. They collapse into the paint beautifully in order to stop any and all penetration, but they never recover outside when the opponents kick it out. This has always been a problem on clubs coached by Eddie Jordan, so expect teams to keep bombing away on the Sixers.

They have enough of an energetic core to make some noise and cause some real problems for pretty much anyone in the Eastern Conference playoffs, but they’re also inconsistent enough to entirely miss the postseason and simply hope for the best in the draft. Here’s looking at three more years of the most exciting 41-41 ball you’ll ever see.

Zachariah Blott is a dish best served cold.

More from The Kids are Alright Series:
- Memphis Grizzlies
- Detroit Pistons