bods and RT as to AIs Fan Disappreciation Day antics, he lives for this stuff, right?
He loves to polarize the city into a 50-50 camp of whether or not he is a good guy or not. Sits back and pouts and does that "me be a victim chip on shoulder" crap. Grow up!
Insterestingly enough he had an interview in which he mentioned that he regretted not being there precisely because it became such a blown up issue. he said that every year at the end of the season there's allways something that comes up that becomes an issue over the summer.
Well, this time it is his own damn fault. He should have been there on time, even if he wasn't going to play. I personally don't think it was a big deal, but as everyone else on the board has noted, he's getting paid a lot of money and the LEAST he could have done is shown up for the fans. As it is, I still haven't heard him appologize for not showing up.
Still is that grounds for trading him? He is still the best player on the team and just finished having his best year statistically. He and Webber are the most prolific scoring duo in the league.
I think they both can be pieces of a winning ball club, but the Sixers need to to a lot of work to make all the pieces they have work together. AI should not have the ball in his hands all the time. In fairness to Cheeks he didn't have Willie Green all season, and I wouldn't want Kevin Ollie running the offense. Salmons and Igoudala are not points, and Louis Williams was too inexperienced as a rookie. Also Louis cannot be in the same backcourt as AI, because together they are too short.
Iverson ran the point and most of the time ran the offense. That is not the right way to get the most out of him. He should be running of the ball to break down the offence, which would allow other players to have the opportunity for easy baskets. Maybe with a healthy Willie we would have had the chance to see that.
Frankly the Sixers offense was not ever run adequately. Althought they could put in a lot of points, when the other team put pressure on them most of the time they came up short. The Sixers never contolled a game by dominating on offense. And they certainly could not stop anyone on the defensive end. So the result was a below average club that never found a formula for winning.
Dalembert regressed and did not appear to be worth that contract he signed. Next year, is a make or break year for him. Either he comes through or the Sixers will bail on him. Hunter looks to be more comfortable at PF and defensively he's better than Webber. Neither of them can play small forward on the defensive end, and Webber is undersized to play Center.
To me this was a wasted year, the additions did not mesh together and Cheeks never found a combination that could work. Cheeks needed more imagination and vision to get this team to play the right way, and he wasn't up to the challenge. It may be that with the pieces he had it simply wasn't possible for them to be a winning team, but he didn't do anything to impress me with his abilities as a coach.