Sixers to sign Donyell Marshall

[doc]

According to Phil Jasner

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20080901_Donyell_Marshall_set_to_join_Sixers.html

[DuckyNinja]

Ed Stefanski continuing his build-a-bench strategy of "throw shit at wall and hope something sticks".  Not much more he can do with only the vet min to give out.  Another solid pickup though all things considered.

[jemagee]

Is he now the sixers best 3 point shooter?

[anklebreaker]

Never really hurts to have a big man who can knock down 3's... just as long as he hasn't lost his touch.  I'm not expecting much from him outside of spot minutes here and there, but I'll take it for the minimum. 

[DuckyNinja]

The Sixers now have 14 guys, although that counts Smith, who's out for the year.  Who ends up as the inactive guy?

[anklebreaker]

We've now added Marshall, Rush, Ratliff, and Ivey to our bench which already includes Lou Williams, Evans, Green, and Speights.  Solid bench. 

[Skates]

Unless he has gotten into better shape than last year and had a little drink of the fountain of youth I would put this in the wily end of the bench veteran who plays emergency minutes and acts as a good practice locker room guy, in other words he will be this year's Calvin Booth.  I could see him getting some time at end of half/game situations where we need to put as many three point shooters on the floor as possible.  Based on his lack of D last year any thing more would be asking too much.

[carolina blue]

meh...

Pickings are slim with only the vet minimum.  He looks an awful lot like a guy who's DONE, but he wasn't signed to play an important role.

[TheGuiltyParty]

I agree that Marshall looks done but I don't see any harm in signing him since it is a minimum deal and we had 2 open roster spots. With one roster spot left, do we sign someone else???

I think we should offer it to Shaun Livingston. We don't need him to do anything for us so if he can't play... it's not a huge loss. If he can recover to a decent level... then it's a steal.

[DuckyNinja]

Offering it to Livingston would be fine.  I think Stefanski's just going to pocket it going in to the season.  No reason blowing a roster spot on somebody who's not gonna play unless they're a raw high upside guy.

[Skates]

It will likely be a rookie free agent like Jamont Gordon.  Not too many FA standouts on our summer league team.  IIRC a rookie FA contract is not guaranteed until sometime later in the season, possibly early January.  I know the cutoff used to be right before Christmas, but the league changed for PR reasons to avoid a bunch of young players publicly getting the ax on Christmas Eve.

[rickortreat]

Stefanski is just trying to improve the odds that we will have enough big men so that Dalembert doesn't have to play the whole game at Center, and as insurance for Speights, to see how long it takes for him to develop into a functional player.

We're fine at the guard spots and the small forward spot.  Past Brand and Dalembert we didn't have a lot of backup players. We now have the best available Forward and Center back-ups Ed could find given the cap situation. Considering all of this was done to replace Jason Smith, it seems like a pretty decent job all in all.

I would say that we are better off now than we were with Jason healthy and in the back-up role at Center.

[jemagee]

Yes, fine at the guard spots

The back up point guard and back up shooting guard are the same player


Unless we are counting willie green....i don't count willie green