Turkish player won't help Sixers much

SOMETIMES change is just something different. It isn't always bad and it isn't always good. The thought of it just might heighten expectations because it is unknown.

While there hasn't been much to be excited about this season when it comes to the 76ers, many have expressed a lot of interest in what seems to be the team's impending signing of forward Furkan Aldemir, the 6-9 forward who terminated his contract in Turkey earlier this week and said he is ready to come to the NBA. His rights were acquired by the Sixers in 2013 in a trade with the Houston Rockets and he has been playing overseas since.

A source said the other day that "it could be a couple of days or a couple of weeks" before any kind of an agreement is reached, paving the way for the 230-pounder to make his debut with the 0-15 Sixers.

While fans are looking for the tiniest morsel of hope for this dreadful team, Furkan isn't it. According to a scout in the NBA, he is a "marginal NBA player."

The 23-year-old, who was taken as the 53rd pick in the 2012 draft by the Los Angeles Clippers, averaged 7.8 points and 6.2 rebounds for Galatasaray in 21 minutes of play. He's considered a very good rebounder in that league, but really doesn't possess many more talents that will be good in the NBA.

"He is very limited at the offensive end," said a scout. "And the problem with that is that he is 23 years old, he has been playing professionally over there for a while so it's not like he can improve much on his shortcomings.

"He is smart at reading the ball off the rim and rebounding in his area, but he isn't going to go and get a rebound out of his spot. He's not very athletic at all. His body isn't very defined. He probably has to play the center spot defensively in the NBA because he's just not quick enough to cover anyone else."

When asked if Aldemir was comparable to anyone in the NBA, none of the scouts I talked to could really give an example. I then posed this: "Could he be as good an NBA player as, say, Lavoy Allen?"

The one response I got that wasn't no: "If he could get himself to be as good as Lavoy Allen, that would be a very big improvement for him."

Said another scout: "He certainly is not someone who is going to get the Sixers to improve very much, if at all. I'm not sure if there are many other teams in the NBA that he could even play for. The fact that the Sixers are in the position that they are means he could get minutes for them, but I seriously doubt any other NBA team would go out of their way at all to getting Furkan Aldemir on their roster."

Coach Brett Brown knows his team needs a win, if for nothing else, to lift the spirits of his players and to justify all the hard work. But getting outside help to do that doesn't seem feasible right now.

"Sam [Hinkie] and that side of it is always looking," Brown said. "What I will say is I think that our best strength with this coaching staff and with these players is that if we can just stay focused on day-to-day stuff and trying to grow it. I really feel like we're going to see daylight where they can get better. To say that there is a person out there that can come in and fix our problem is probably not.

"I'm seeing signs that if we cannot get distracted by the noise and stay together, I feel like that's our best chance to get better, not discounting maybe there is somebody else out there."

Furkan Aldemir doesn't seem to be the one, however.

It's been a double-dose of reality for Michael Carter-Williams since he returned to action on Nov. 13 after offseason shoulder surgery.

First, the winless streak, which now has tied the team's record for futility to open a season at 15, is gnawing at him perhaps more than any of his teammates. He is one of the few on this roster who has actually tasted success in the league, albeit individual, as he is the reigning rookie of the year.

Secondly, his own game still hasn't reached anywhere close to where it was last season, as he hasn't been able to find it so far in the eight games he has played since his return.

He has shot 50 percent from the floor in only one game and he is shooting a paltry 34.4 percent from the field. He is averaging four turnovers a game and, because Brett Brown really has no other way to go, he is sharing the backcourt duties with Tony Wroten, which isn't really an ideal pairing, as both are better with the ball in their hands and possess similar games.

In a game that was as winnable as any the team has played this season, the duo combined for 11 turnovers against the Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday and shot 7-for-27 from the floor.

A legitimate outside shooter would certainly help MCW, and Wroten, too. Newly acquired Robert Covington has shown some marksmanship and Hollis Thompson appears to be getting his form back.

"A good shooter helps everybody," Brown said. "Tony [Parker] and Manu [Ginobili] used to cry for Robert Horry and [Matt] Bonner [in San Antonio]. Not because they made a single shot, they just created more space for them. As I go through this now in my 14th year, space with the size of these athletes and the speed of the athletes is everything. It's more than just space to drive Tony Wroten or Michael. It's everybody. It's space. They're just such big men. Everybody benefits from it."

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