| Sixers Full Of Question Marks Authored by Jim Serratore - March 29, 2005 - 12:40 am
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Meanwhile, everything else involving the Sixers remains a mystery. Nobody knows how good they can be because of the fact that their roster was so recently transformed in such dramatic fashion. When Chris Webber arrived in town with Rodney Rogers at the trading deadline, the Sixers appeared ready for prime time. In the first 15 games since then, the Sixers are just 9-6 and Webber has struggled to find his niche playing with Iverson. Meanwhile there has been plenty of concern regarding the Sixers often unimpressive defense, which arguably got worse, not better, after the big trade.
Not that there were any clear answers in the first half of the season either. The Sixers have been a work in progress since the first day of training camp. New faces in new places and a new coach were responsible for that much. After half a season of adjustments, the whole project went back to square one again with the addition of Webber.
The success of the Sixers depends on the adjustment of Webber and Iverson to each other, in the midst of a heated playoff race. It also depends on the continued development of young stars-in-the-making: Andre Iguodala and Samuel Dalembert. Finally, it depends on head coach Jim O’Brien’s efforts to make all the new pieces fit together in harmony.
The Sixers are in their own world these days. While most teams around the league have developed a comfort level for each other by this point in the season, the Sixers are playing a form of catch up; forced by circumstance to adjust on the fly.
In Miami, where the Heat figure to be the odds-on favorites to win the conference title, the only significant changes were the additions of a couple of veteran role players: Alonzo Mourning and Steve Smith. In Detroit, where the world champion Pistons are preparing to defend their crown, the only notable change was the addition of backup point guard Carlos Arroyo. Both teams clearly got better and neither had to take two steps backward to take one step forward the way the Sixers did.
The rest of the regular season figures to be very interesting in Philadelphia, where the Sixers will look to avoid having to play a top seed in the first round. Will the Sixers develop into a good enough team to give Miami and Detroit nightmares? It is too early to tell, but remember this. Iverson has made a living proving people wrong and this year’s playoffs figure to pit him as an underdog.
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