Mind you, as a Philadelphian, I find anything 'mediocre' to be unacceptable. And so, to that end, I cannot tolerate our new head coach - Eddie Jordan. Mr. not-even-mediocre.
The Sixers have been completely average these last two seasons. Get excited all you want about Lou Will's offense; Speights' highlights (on offense); flashes of Iggy, etc etc You're still left with mediocrity.
Ok. That we all know.
But what we DO have is youth, energy, athleticism. It is those qualities that he needed to come in here and harness and use to our advantage. "Make the most of what you got", as they say.
The NBA is famous for tolerating overpaid, pampered, offense-only-minded "talent". And so when you are lucky enough to oversee a team with all that youth and energy, the logical approach - in my mind - is to play more ferociously on defense than every other team out there. Crash the boards with urgency. Hustle plays that the other teams' vets just aren't willing to make.
That's the ONLY way we win with a team like ours. We don't have half the talent necessary to compete otherwise. And no other team plays the way I describe for 82; they just don't.
So what have we here? What wise, veteran coach can we bring in here to implement such an obvious game plan? Hmmm...hey, I know! How 'bout EDDIE JORDAN? He of the 230-288 career record! HE can do it!!
Okee doke. So let's see what we've got.
Well, he spent the entire training camp 'perfecting' the Princeton offense. Ok, I said at the time, I'll buy in. Why not. Get everyone involved...keep moving...use that athleticism. Fine.
But what was he doing to prepare his eager squad for the other 70% of the game? Ya know, rebounding and defense?
And this is where I have issues.
Big ones.
Night in and night out I find myself yelling, "WHY DO WE HAVE NO REBOUNDERS IN THE GAME???" What jackass would leave us exposed like that? Jesus - I want TWO rebounders in there at all times. Yet, I'm forever seeing a combo of, like, Speights and Thad in there as our "Bigs". Maybe even Kapono. NO WONDER OUR LEADING REBOUNDER AVERAGES 7 REBOUNDS PER GAME!!
Eddie: get your head out of your ass. THE most important thing in basketball is HAVING the ball. NOTHING is more important than rebounding. It ends the other team?s possession, and begins our own.
1. We are giving up FIVE more points per game than we did last year.
2. Opponents FG% is up from last year.
3. We are grabbing 1.5 less boards and giving up 1 more. Our offensive rebounds are down 2.5! (Inexcusable for a team with such youthful, athletic energy)
4. Your ingenious Princeton offense scores one single basket more than we did last year. Two. Points. (It's actually yielding one less shot attempt.)
Goddamn Carney shoots 35% and grabs pretty much no rebounds. Yet I seem to see him in there all the time. You sit ELTON GODDAMN BRAND for entire quarters. He's a 20/10 guy, for Christ sake! (Is he still? I dunno. How can anyone know with those minutes played.)
We struggled to beat the Nets last week; and eked one out against them again last night. You had to know it killed Eddie to go to Sam in the 4th when Lopez - of all people - was destroying us (23/14 on the night for a 13/8 career guy). It almost looked to me like Sam was thinking, "Yeah? Ya want me to go in there to stop that guy? Screw you a-hole. You made this bed, YOU sleep in it."
But Sam (whom I've never been a fan of, as you know) went in...and with almost no effort righted the Sixers on to a victory. Easy peasy.
Will Eddie Jordan stop trying to force-fit our team to fit HIS 230-288 style? I sure hope so. Because this team remains mediocre right now, at best. It just accomplishes that distinction in a slightly different way this year is all.
