Inside the Sixers: Holiday in the future

If you allow them to, the 76ers will depress you.

The losses, the wins, the postgame comments, the on-court debacles, even the rare on-court execution - all of it. The losses are pathetic, the wins are worse, the bad play is unwatchable, and the good play is pointless.

Welcome to your Sixers, version 2009-2010, a team whose slogan might as well have been: We lose even when we win.

Eddie Jordan's days as Sixers coach are flipping off the calendar, each practice and game bringing Jordan that much closer to the end. Jordan's woes have been written, blogged, discussed, and tweeted.

Forget that soon-to-be past. It's time for a glimpse of the future. Of - dare we say - hope?

And that hope is rookie point guard Jrue Holiday. Have you been paying attention? Have you seen this kid lately? Have you noticed that his game is dynamic, efficient, and improving by the minute?

Holiday is like City Hall, something you build around. Only problem is, the Sixers don't possess the pieces to fill the next-closest gap, shooting guard.

That piece must come in the 2010 draft or via this summer's trade market.

Holiday could be the cornerstone of a solid but young starting backcourt. As it stands, the Sixers don't have that shooting guard to whom Holiday could dish off the drive, with whom he could lock up on defense, or run with out on the break.

Who on this roster could fill that starting spot alongside Holiday?

Not combo guard Lou Williams, who has proven himself an off-the-bench spark, and that's fine for his $5 million a year paycheck.

Not reserve guard Willie Green, who should never play more than 18 minutes a game, and that's fine for a backup role.

Not Andre Iguodala, whose outside shot could help build City Hall - brick by brick - but who should not be charged with unlocking defenses from the perimeter.

And not Jodie Meeks, who might turn out to be a decent shooter off the bench but not a contending team's starting shooting guard.

The Sixers need a guy worthy of Holiday's promise. And they need him by the 2010-11 season.

If they enter another season without this mystery man, they'll continue to shuffle pieces into the wrong spots - covering for glaring roster deficiencies by moving swingmen into guard roles and power forwards into center roles - until the final product resembles a puzzle you put together in the dark.

Kind of like this year's team.

The name that keeps popping up is Ohio State's Evan Turner, a 6-foot-7 shooting guard whose youth and length appear on paper as the perfect complement to Holiday. Problem is that Turner looks like a top-three pick in this summer's draft.

The Sixers, as they currently stand, will likely hold a draft pick somewhere from sixth to eighth, their reward for this train-wreck of a season.

Not high enough for Turner.

The trading chip the Sixers hold - and held at the NBA trading deadline in February - is Iguodala. Scanning the Sixers' roster, it's clear where there's a logjam - at small forwardm with Iguodala and third-year guy Thaddeus Young.

Both are small forwards, neither is a shooting guard, and there isn't room for two anymore.

Not after this season.

Either the Sixers trade a small forward for improved draft position - assuming they don't luck out at the NBA draft lottery - or they package a small forward for a legitimate NBA shooting guard.

This season is depressing. It has been since that early-season losing streak, and it continued with the team's late-season swan dive.

But remember Holiday: He's like the skylight in an otherwise closed room. He allows you to see more than the box you're in.

The Sixers have to find him an equally promising shooting guard.

Read Kate Fagan's 76ers blog, Deep Sixer, every day at www.philly.com/sixers.

Posted 01:24 p.m. 03/25/2010

duder

As long as we're talking draft, it looks like we have an interesting conundrum coming up due to our mid-lottery status. I think most people would agree that our biggest immediate need is still a front line 2 guard. The only guards currently projected as lottery picks are John Wall, Evan Turner (swing 2/3), and Xavier Henry (slated in the neighborhood of the 14 slot, depending where you look). So assuming we don't luck out and get to pick Wall or Turner, do we reach down and grab Henry or go for one of the big men slated for the mid-first round? Given the Sixers' history, you'd have to think they'll just take the best guy left, which probably means a big man, but who knows at this point. It will be interesting, to say the least.