It was left for Elton Brand, the resident new Sixers star, to remind everyone what comes next.

"Training camp is a start, it's not the barometer," Brand was saying during a group session in the press room of the Wachovia Center.

"You can always get better. [Here is where we] start to see how we'll mesh and how we'll grow, because, overall, we're still a young team; we need to play together. We have some new parts - me, I'm a big new part."

Brand, preparing for his 10th season in the NBA, declined an opportunity to remain with the Los Angeles Clippers, eschewed a significantly larger offer to join the Golden State Warriors and accepted a 5-year contract worth $79.8 million with the Sixers. Perhaps because he grew up in Peekskill, N.Y., because he spent two seasons at Duke, because he has friends and associates in the East, he seems to have an appreciation and an understanding for what's coming next.

"The city has been a great experience," the new Gladwyne resident was saying. "You hear about the Philadelphia fans, but it's passion. They want their local teams to win, and that's what they're about. Everybody's excited. The Phillies made the playoffs, we're rooting for them, and then it's on us."

Part of the lure of the Sixers for Brand was the style they developed last season, with the arrival of president/general manager Ed Stefanski, with a group of young athletes playing faster and faster, with the most talented of the group - Andre Iguodala, Thaddeus Young, Lou Williams - systematically placed in areas of greater responsibility. At the same time, it was painfully clear that they lacked a low-post presence, one that could command double-teams, that could crash the glass and ignite the fastbreak, that could trail the break and clean up some of the things that didn't initially work.

That's the 6-9, 254-pound Brand's game. He holds career averages of 20.3 points, 10.2 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 2.1 blocks; he's one of just four active players with career averages of at least 20 points and 10 rebounds, joining an elite class of Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Shaquille O'Neal. And by all accounts, those sills remain fully intact after missing all but the last eight games of last season because of surgery to repair a torn Achilles' tendon.

"The fans here, they're passionate about their teams," he said. "They want you to win. They come out and support you; that's why there's the so-called pressure to play well. All eyes are on you in Philadelphia during the basketball season. That's definitely going to be different than playing with the Clippers, and being in the Lakers' kind of shadow."

He will be a prime focus of the team, but even as a two-time All-Star, he has already made it a point to make his mark in a new setting, even if it has just been during precamp training and conditioning sessions at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

"Coach [Maurice] Cheeks has been at the workouts every day, so he sees the player that I am in a structured setting," Brand said. "You want to show them exactly who you are as a player . . . I'm here, I know what my role's going to be, but it's about 'team' with me. The city, they can focus on me to be that leader, which I am going to be, but at the end of the day I want to win ballgames. If Andre Iguodala scores 25 points, if Andre Miller gets 17 assists, I have no ego. As long as we're winning the games, I'm sure the city is going to be happy."

Six shots