And not once was the term Wildcat or the name Michael Vick uttered.

New Sixers coach Eddie Jordan sat at a long lunch table on the Sixers' practice court at PCOM yesterday for about half-an-hour and answered various questions from the gathered media, mostly about his Princeton offense. Then he took it to the court and ran, er, walked, five participants through a sketch of his offense.

Here's hoping his players pick it up far quicker than the five volunteers (yours truly included) who took the court. Jordan showed us just two options that evolve from the offense, though it took about 20 minutes to get through it.

"It's all about flash, pick-and-rolls and reads and dribble handoffs and backdoor cuts," he explained. "There are about 100 different things to do out of this offense. I showed two of them to you. In this offense everyone has to be versatile. The guards will be doing forward things and the forwards will be doing guard things at times. The center is just that, at the center of the offense."

After all that, Jordan also stated that he hopes the team doesn't have to run the offense all that much and that his first priority for this team, when training camp opens at Saint Joseph's on Tuesday, is defense.

Let's explain: Jordan knows the strength of this team is its athleticism. Defensively, he wants to attack the ball, force turnovers, get out and run and get easy baskets. Ideally, that would be the major part of his offense. When asked about his defensive philosophy, Jordan's green eyes sparkled in anticipation. It is what he can't wait to get into with his team.

But the talk is the offense, and Jordan excitedly talked about what he learned from Pete Carril while both were assistant coaches for the Sacramento Kings under Gary St. Jean. Jordan eventually took over that team late in the 1997 season and all of the next year, then moved on and coached five-plus seasons with the Washington Wizards. Each year, the offense got better. Jordan pointed out earlier this summer that many players, in both Sacramento and Washington, had career years on offense while he was coaching. That is his hope as he takes over a team that was 22nd in the NBA in scoring at 97.4 a game last season.

"This is the Celtics' offense from the '60s, the Knicks' offense of the '70s," he said. "This is a reminder of how basketball is supposed to be played, I believe. In the late 1990s, there was a lot of stagnant offenses because of isolations. Guys would go on one side of the court and a player would go one-on-one. But the defensive rules have changed now and you can help better on defense and stop the isolations better. This offense will get everyone involved.

"Where we have to improve the most is seeing. We have to see what's available. See and deliver. It's a reaction to an action. What do you see when you have the ball? What do you see when you don't have the ball? Should there be a dribble handoff or a backdoor cut? Repetition is the mother of all learning. We have to learn how to see."

One thing was obvious as Jordan walked us through the sets, and that was the variety of options that will be available to the players. There is no featured player, no go-to guy. All will play to their strengths, whether it's Andre Iguodala posting up against smaller players and exploding to the basket or Elton Brand shooting midrange jumpers or Lou Williams breaking down a defender and getting to the basket or Thaddeus Young using his abundance of athleticism. And yes, Sam Dalembert also will be counted on offensively, mostly planting himself at the high post, setting screens, passing and shooting jumpers from the elbow.

"With Sam, it's like we're deprogramming to reprogram," Jordan said. "If we have to make him learn how to throw backdoor passes, then we'll have him do that over and over. What he does do well, and we knew this when I was coaching against the Sixers, is he can hit the jump shot from the foul-line area."

When he interviewed for the job, Jordan excelled when he did the same type of "chalkboard" session with general manager Ed Stefanski and others. His passion for the game, particularly this offense, is undeniable. At one point during his lesson on the court, he even mumbled, "I could do this all day." He meant it, though he did admit the personnel he was working with needed a major upgrade.

Though some heads were spinning from the lessons just learned, Jordan finished by making it all sound so simple: "We need to flow to get to our spots, no stopping and going back. The key is you have to be willing to be unselfish. If you help teammates first, you will ultimately help yourself."

The lessons start on Tuesday. Obviously, there are no guarantees about the Sixers improving on last season's 41-41 record. The only guarantee is that Jordan will have better participants than he did yesterday.

Six shots

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