Still no Carney

Just finished at 76ers shootaround, they play the Washington Wizards tonight at the Wachovia Center. When the curtain first lifted this morning at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, it looked like Rodney Carney might be 100 percent back: He was on the second team, running through some sets. Alas, upon talking with Sixers PR, Carney still won't suit up tonight. If you want such information quicker, feel free to follow Deep Sixer on Twitter. Click here: Deep Sixer.

It's been about a week since we were back on Sixers here. First, the Sixers went to Phoenix and then Mexico. Next, I spent a couple of days at Citizen's Bank Park covering the National League Championship Series. Now, we're back. I don't believe I'll be leaving Sixers/Deep Sixer again, so we'll try to get this blog going like we did last year.

Obviously, I'm a little behind on how the Sixers looked in their last two games. The box score really doesn't help too much in that regard. But there's 8 days left before the season opener and two games: Tonight's and Friday night's against the New Jersey Nets in Queens, NY. If you're going to tonight's game, or following it, here's some storylines:

1.) The Wizards are Eddie Jordan's most recent team: They fired him in November of last year, only a handful of games into the 2008-09 season. There was a decent amount of D.C. media at this morning's shoot around -- more D.C. media than Philly media. (But we know where the Philly media is.) Jordan had success with the Wizards, where he ran the same Princeton Offense he's running here with the Sixers. That's a storyline, sure, but let's look at the on-court ones:

2.) I know I'm interested to watch Elton Brand again. His numbers on the two-game swing were light, almost like he was the 3rd, 4th or 5th option. And maybe he is. That would be fine -- I can see Iguodala, Young, and Williams scoring more than Brand -- but it would be a huge shift from the Brand the Sixers thought they were getting.

3.) More Princeton Offense. There's only eight days until the Sixers open at the Orlando Magic. They've been adding sets daily, they even added one this morning at shootaround. It's always a storyline to see how the offense is flowing, how it looks, how effective it is. It'll be especially interesting to see how the Sixers can run it against the Wizards, a team that ran it themselves for the previous 5 years. I'm still not sure what stage the Sixers are in with this offense, not sure if they are running it well or struggling. Not sure if they are going away from it a lot, or working through the kinks. We'll try to get a better reading on that tonight -- as much as is possible during pre-season games.

4.) Jrue Holiday. Last time I watched a game, Holiday, the Sixers rookie, did not get off the bench against the New York Knicks. He got a ton of minutes on this latest swing, and appeared to be efficient and effective with those minutes. Does this mean he might actually get some minutes this year? Was Jordan trying to build up his confidence? Still unsure of these answers.

5.) Washington's Agent Zero ... Gilbert Arenas ... he's always interesting.

More tonight ....

--Kate