Philadelphia 76ers 2007 Preview

For the first time in over a decade, the 76ers will open a season without Allen Iverson on their roster. The indestructible guard, he of the everlasting cocktail of excitement and controversy, has been gone since December, sent in a trade away from his only NBA home to Denver. And the Sixers? They’re stuck in a rebuilding mode.

There is no proven star on their 2007-08 team, no perennial All-Star. They are young, relatively unproven, and seemingly content to start over. The plan, it seems, is to build on the young talent they have, and hope — a dangerous concept in an ever-improving conference that this summer welcomed Kevin Garnett — for improvement all the way down the roster.

There is much about this team that is up in the air. Coach Maurice Cheeks and team president Billy King are in the final year of their respective contracts. Attendance last year plummeted to south of 15,000 fans per game, second-worst in the entire NBA. Interest, to put it mildly, is flat, and expectations, at least from the unforgiving public, are low, if not worse.

And yet, Cheeks is optimistic, in part because even after his young team had been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention last season, the players kept playing hard. After a 50-point loss to Houston and a 21-point loss to Detroit, the Sixers ended the season on a 9–5 run. In fact, after Iverson was traded to Denver on Dec. 19, the Sixers went 30–29 to finish the season 35–47.

For those scoring at home, their record before the trade was a dismal 5–18.

“We can’t just go in next season thinking that we are trying to get better,” Cheeks said during the offseason “We are going in with the mindset that we are trying to get in the playoffs.”

Frontcourt
Whatever hopes the Sixers have of achieving that goal will rest with Andre Iguodala, the player whom King and Cheeks are banking on. Iguodala certainly has the talent. Only four players last season averaged at least 18 points, 5.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists — Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Tracy McGrady and Iguodala.

A swingman with long arms and a nice touch around the basket, Iguodala is versatile enough that he can play shooting guard, although the Sixers’ lack of scoring production from their frontcourt players means Iguodala needs to play somewhat close to the basket.

The ninth overall pick in the 2004 draft, Iguodala didn’t miss a game for almost three years, then had back spasms last year and missed six games, but otherwise averaged 40.3 minutes per game. He will be 24 years old in January, and clearly the team’s hopes rest with him.

The Sixers’ biggest question is who will start at power forward. The most likely option is Steven Hunter, who has had two below-average years with the Sixers already. His 6.4 points and 4.8 rebounds per game last season were career highs, not exactly the production the Sixers will need at the 4-spot. Another option is 6'7" Rodney Carney, their first-round draft pick of a year ago who averaged 6.6 points and only 1.9 rebounds last season.

The Sixers also are hoping that center Samuel Dalembert will have improved over the summer. Dalembert had decent raw numbers last season — as an 82-game starter, he averaged a career-high 10.7 points and 8.9 rebounds per game — but his basketball IQ still is a question. He fouled out of nine games because he frequently tried to overcompensate after getting beat on defense.

Off the bench, the Sixers will use Kyle Korver, an effective 3-point shooter (.430 last season) who led the NBA in free throw percentage (.914) in 2006-07 and averaged a career-high 14.4 points per game. If the Sixers ever decide to go small this season, Korver could be a option to start at small forward, although in the 74 games he played last season, he only started once.

Backcourt
The best thing to come out of the Iverson ordeal last winter was Andre Miller. The Sixers were extremely happy with the former Utah Ute, who in 57 games with the team started 56 times and averaged 13.6 points, 7.3 assists, 4.4 rebounds and 1.28 steals. He can score, is reliable with the ball, and is a good locker room guy, something the young Sixers desperately need.

Getting the start with Miller in the backcourt likely will be Willie Green, who started 36 of 74 games last season after being slowed in 2005-06 following an offseason knee injury. Green averaged a career-high 11.3 points per game but shot a disappointing 41.1 percent from the field and 66.7 from the line. The real X-factor in the backcourt is young Louis Williams, who jumped from South Gwinnett High in Georgia to the NBA in 2005 as the Sixers’ second-round draft pick (45th overall). The 21-year-old Williams finished strong at the end of last season, scoring in double figures in five of the team’s last six games. He lit it up during the Las Vegas summer league tournament, averaging more than 25 points in five games.

“It showed me I am a lot tougher than I thought I was,” Williams said at the end of the tournament. “I didn't want to come back sloppy and out of shape, so I stayed on the track in my old high school and worked on sprinting. Even when I played pickup ball, I worked on beating everybody up the court just to keep my heart rate and to stay in shape.”

Final analysis
With so much youth, a rocky season will be hard to avoid. The only saving grace is that expectations outside of the Wachovia Center are low, and most Philadelphia sports fans, while displeased by the basketball team’s downturn, will be focused on football through the end of the year.

The playoffs might be the Sixers’ stated goal, but avoiding the cellar of the Atlantic Division should be a more realistic one. Every team in their division got better during the offseason — Boston making the most striking move in trading for Garnett — and the Sixers did nothing other than sign their draft picks and lose a good locker room presence. Finishing .500 would be a victory.