Playoff Thoughts

• Some interesting Nuggets tidbits. One, no one is talking about the potential Melo-LeBron Finals. After they were pinned together for years, now it's all about LeBron. But having these two pitted against one another in the Finals will be interesting.
  
• Secondly, how about Billups and Anthony teaming together on the Nuggs? The Pistons COULD HAVE HAD THIS COMBINATION. Instead, they chose Darko Milicic over Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony, AND Chris Bosh. They definitely don't get enough grief for this. WORST PICK EVER.
• The semis are looking great. Melo looked like a beast out there in Game One. Kobe definitely got some calls, but I think the series will be decided by the ability of the Nuggets to close things out at the end of games. They have some real knuckleheaded players like JR Smith and Kenyon Martin.
• If Anthony continues to play like this, he's definitely a top-5 player in the league.
• All day, I've been thinking about how the Cavs can match-up with the Magic's Alston-Pietrus-Hedo-Lewis-Howard line-up. The answer is that they can't! The Cavs have to step up and not worry about match-ups. They have some good, quick guards--Mo Williams, Boobie Gibson, Delonte West--that the Magic can't run around with all night, they have LeBron, they have some size, they've gotta play their game!
• That said, the Cavs have no one that can cover Dwight Howard (the corpse of Ben Wallace?) and no one that can cover Hedo or Lewis (at least they don't have two guys to cover those two guys).
• Thoughts on the Draft: Clippers could be a good squad if they weren't so freakin' dysfunctional. Griffin with Kaman, Camby, Baron, Gordon, Thornton, those are some young guns and some good vets. Problem is they have the Cancer: Zach Randolph who is a terrible person, doesn't play defense, and plays Griffin's position. He's got to go.
• Ricky Rubio is really the only other decent pick in this draft. Though we did say that last year, and the '08 draft turned out to have A LOT of good talent. Still, it's hard to sing the praises of a draft where Hasheem Thabeet (50-50 probability of being a complete stiff) is the slam-dunk no. 2 or 3 pick.
  

So what happened?

A season that started weak, ended weak. The Sixers bowed out once again 4-2 in the first round of the playoffs. Once again they looked not as promising in the playoffs as they did at certain points in the season. This time, Iguodala was not the goat and Elton Brand is waiting in the wings. There is some hope... but the direction is unclear.

Here are some thoughts on the Sixers this offseason:

• Every NBA fans' nightmare is that his team will become mediocre. Cleveland was mediocre for a while...then they got terrible...then they got Lebron. The Spurs swallowed a terrible season without David Robinson (due to injury) and then fell ass-backwards into Tim Duncan. The Celtics were loaded with young assets--and stunk--and decided to move those young'uns for some real talent. My fear today is that the Sixers are no better and have no better prospects than the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks have Villanueva, Ridnour, Redd, Ramon Sessions, Andrew Bogut, and Bobby Simmons. Plus they're lottery-bound. You could say that they're an "up-and-coming" team, but who would you be kidding? They're mediocre. They need to improve substantially and get at least two more good players. I think the Sixers are in the same boat. Neither team has a boatload of money to spend either...Oh well.
• The Sixers have glaring holes and they made add another when Andre Miller leaves the team this summer. They have no shooters, unless you count the corpse of Donyell Marshall. They will probably have no real point guards. Plus, they will have no offense from the center position. Basically, they've got a bunch of swingmen and role players who can't shoot.
• The logjam still exists. How many undersized two-guards that can't shoot does a team need? Royal Ivey is a decent journeyman nobody, add Willie Green, Kareem Rush and Lou Williams to the mix and you have the ultimate undersized mix of barely-average guards. I guess it's unfair to Lou--whose played well this year--and Willie--who had a career season--to still clump them in with Royal and Kareem, but no team in the NBA that is sane has this many guards who are 6'2 or under and can neither shoot nor play point.
• Andre Miller will probably go to a contender or a pretender or anyone else this summer. That subtracts the Sixers best player from the mix. Yes, he's old and unexciting. But he was the one steadying force who could get it done day in and day out. Without him, you could be looking at the pre-Al Horford and pre-Joe Johnson Atlanta Hawks. Ug.
• Sam Dalembert still sucks. The fact that Theo Ratliff, who has passed around like a bong at a Wesleyan party due to his expiring contract before this year, played serious playoff minutes tells you something. Dalembert is at best an inconsistent slightly crappy C and more realistically a very overpaid, skinny version of DeSagana Diop.
• Is there hope? There's Andre Iguodala. He proved that he can be a great number-two guy. He could be the second coming of Scottie Pippen if he were taller, improved his defense, and learned to shoot. There's Thad Young. Oozing with potential. But he and Iggy are 3s. I guess you could make Iggy into a 2--but that would require replacing his wrists with a smoother pair. Then there's Elton Brand. The team can reconfigure itself around Brand, Young and/or Iguodala, and some young guys (Speights, Jason Smith, Lou). That wouldn't be the worst team, especially if Brand can become anything near his former self.
• We have no coach. Our team's philosophy is shot. Run with us only goes so far if you have no 3-point shooters. In the Sixers' wildest dreams, they'd be a faster version of the Magic. But they have no shooters. Brand is no Dwight Howard and Andre Iguodala is barely better than Hedo Turkoglu let alone Rashard Lewis. If they had a guy like Rajon Rondo manning the point for years to come, I'd have hope. They don't.
  
• What's needed? A shooter. A real young point guard (see: the draft). A new philosophy. Avery Johnson. Major changes need to be made....