Archive: April, 2012
CHICAGO – Philadelphia 76ers owner Josh Harris endorsed the return of Sixers coach Doug Collins for next season on Friday.
During a 12-minute conference call Saturday night, Harris said he expected Collins to return as the team’s coach for the 2012-13 season.
“I think Doug appreciates the situation he has here and he likes being a part of the team,” Harris said. “And I think he and I have a great relationship at least from my point of view and I think he feels that way as well.
The Philadelphia 76ers have left Andre Iguodala, Elton Brand and Thaddeus Young are at home resting while the team prepares to play its final two games of the season, beginning tonight in Milwaukee.
The two will also miss the team’s final game of the season at Detroit on Thursday. The good news for the Sixers is that Iguodala, who had to be helped off the court following the Sixers’ playoff-berth clinching victory over the Nets on Monday night, is fine and is not being listed by the team as injured.
For many 76ers fans, reaching the playoffs this season is a bit disappointing.
Don’t get me wrong – I get it. Everyone is aware of the completely different arcs that this season and last season took.
The 2010-11 Sixers rallied to reach the playoffs after a 3-13 start. Meanwhile, this team arrives as either a seventh or eighth seed after firing out of the blocks early – with pretty much the same personnel – only to stagger in as the last guest to receive an invitation to the postseason.
Philadelphia 76ers guard Lou Williams will opt out of the final year of his contract at the end of this season and become an unrestricted free agent, according to a league source with knowledge of the situation.
If he were not to opt out, Williams would be due $6.4 million from the Sixers.
Said the source: “He’s indicated that he’s not going to pick up his option. All indications are that he’s going to opt out.”
For the better part of the season, especially when everything was peachy down at the Wells Fargo Center, 76ers chief executive officer and co-owner Adam Aron’s job looked to be mostly about making sure that the confetti machines were tuned up and ready to churn out the red, white and blue snow that they belched out after all of those early victories.
But now that we have seen the Sixers drop 21 of their last 33 games heading into Saturday’s game with Indiana (and fighting still for the final seed in the Eastern Conference Playoffs), Aron, a Twitter maven, has tweeted some things recently that will no doubt endear him even more to the team’s faithful.
This past week he tweeted that “Ownership fully understands all the fan angst about the @Sixers 11-21 record since starting 20-9. Status quo is not good enough.”
So, your 76ers have seven games left in which to salvage the season. But is this season really one deserving of resuscitation?
Everywhere I go, whenever the Sixers become the subject of conversation, most fans of the team have completely reversed field on wanting them to make the playoffs. They want to see the Sixers “lose out.”
This, of course, is a complete reversal of field from the consensus regarding this team when it stood atop the Atlantic Division with a 20-9 record and looked like it was headed for home court advantage in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Video: The Sixers' two-game win streak was snapped by the Nets on Friday night. The loss dropped the 76ers to eighth place in the Eastern Conference with seven games to play. John Mitchell of the Inquirer reports from the Wells Fargo Center.
It appears that while most were focusing on the gossipy stuff surrounding the 76ers last week, others were more focused on what has been an almost unprecedented defensive performance by the Sixers during this campaign.
While the Sixers have were reportedly ‘tuning out’ coach Doug Collins in the month of March, this tuned out group continued to stay locked in defensively, a trait that most NBA coaches with tuned in players would give their left arm for if they could get this type of effort from their players.
Not only do they still lead the NBA with the fewest points allowed per game (88.2), but, according to Neil Payne over at ESPN.com, the Sixers still lead the league with the fewest points allowed per 100 possessions (98.). They have led the league in this statistical category since the season began, a feat that has only been accomplished nine times since 1986.
