| Sixers Lose To Champs, But Gain Some Perspective Authored by Jim Serratore - February 17, 2005 - 7:05 pm
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On Wednesday night the Sixers continued to iron out the wrinkles that come from having a new coach, a new system, and a roster full of young, inexperienced players playing important roles. Unfortunately, for Sixers fans hoping to see one more win before the All-Star break, the Sixers had to put their three-game winning streak on the line against the defending world champs, who by the way, have been red hot the last two weeks. The results were not pretty as Detroit won convincingly, 93-75.
Against much of the dreadfully mediocre Eastern Conference, the Sixers are good enough to endure the natural growing pains that come with the territory of being in year one of a rebuilding process and still pull off a win. That isn’t nearly good enough against Detroit though. The Pistons play in the Eastern Conference, but that is about all they have in common with their conference mates. For anybody to give Detroit fits this year, they’ll have to bring their A-game or else perish like the rest.
The Pistons pride themselves on playing the game the right way. They play smart, they play under control, and they make their opponents earn everything the hard way. Versus the Sixers, Detroit went on the attack early, built a comfortable lead, sat on the ball through the middle quarters, and then turned up the heat in the final quarter with one last run to ice the game. It’s a great recipe for success and the Pistons execute it about as well as any team in the league. The Sixers can learn a lot from them.
Is there help on the way? Probably not this year.
As the NBA trading deadline creeps closer and closer to the present date, general managers, coaches, players and fans all over the country are asking the same question in regards to their favorite team, “Are we buyers or sellers this year?”
Wednesday night’s game against Detroit was a clear example of how much further the Sixers have to come before they can consider themselves contenders in the same class as Detroit and San Antonio. The continued development of the Sixers young players, especially Andre Iguodala and Samuel Dalembert, should prove more vital, in the long run, to the Sixers chances of contending. Rather than trading Glenn Robinson for some former All-Star with a big, long contract, the Sixers would probably do best to wait for their young talent to mature by giving them minutes and letting them learn from their mistakes.
Philadelphia 76ers GM Billy King is between a rock and a hard place. His team is 26-27, which leaves them, shockingly, only a single game out of first place. If he swings a deal to improve the team for right now, it will likely come at the expense of having the flexibility to add a key free agent this summer. Anybody King trades for now will have to be good enough to take the place of a free agent addition this summer because for all intents and purposes he will. The good news, for Sixers fans with the big picture in mind, is King doesn’t figure to have many attractive options in the trade market.
Should King lets the deadline pass without making any moves, he would at least be guaranteed of having a nice amount of money to spend on free agents this summer. The bad news, in the short term, is he’ll be left with a team that has proven to be at least one major piece away from contending for a ring. The anemic Atlantic Division is only making King’s option of waiting for this summer to improve the team that much harder to swallow.
Since King has had very little flexibility in past off-seasons with the Sixers, chances are he will do nothing before the deadline and make his mark in free agency. That’s encouraging because most of King’s recent moves have proven to be wise, at least since he gained total control when Larry Brown left town. King surrounded Iverson with young, talented players who compliment him by always playing hard and doing all the little things. Nobody expected this year’s team to make a run at the NBA title, but next year could be different if King plays his cards right. There’s really no reason to believe he won’t.
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