Igoudala, Miller, Dalembert, and some guys off the street

It's preview week here at Sixerpride!

Later in the week I'll give my specific predictions for the Sixers and the NBA as a whole, but for now we'll start by looking at the Sixers preview developed by the good folks over at the Wages of Wins.

I think the preview can be summarized pretty easily: Igoudala, Miller, and Dalembert are good, and the rest of the team is pretty worthless. Well, that's not entirely true since Reggie Evans has a very strong WP48 score, but it was true for last year's team. And with the exception of the aforementioned Evans, this year's team is pretty similar to last year's team.

Of course, since last year's team was above .500 for the second half of the season that statement isn't the death knell for the Sixers that most commentators have been treating it as.

WoW also makes two other observations about the Sixers that I think are spot on.

First, the Sixers played Willie Green and Rodney Carney significant minutes last year, and neither player is good (in fact, they're bad). Unfortunately, based on the articles I've been reading, it sounds like both players are going to be getting significant minutes again this year-- with Willie Green likely starting and Carney getting minutes as his back-up. It's not clear why the Sixers' coaches and management are so high on these two players, but I guess that's just something we need to live with as fans.

Second, the Sixers played at least 800 minutes last season with one of our small forwards (Korver or Carney) playing as the power forward in a small line-up. Neither of these players is capable of rebounding at the level needed from a power forward, so these small line-ups hurt the Sixers. Again, based on the articles I've been reading, it looks like Mo Cheeks is planning to use some small line-ups again this year (although possibly with Thaddeus Young as the power forward). Hopefully Mo Cheeks will decide against this strategy, but I'm not holding my breath.

All in all, Wins Produced gives a much more optimistic picture for the upcoming Sixers season than most other predictions. WoW doesn't give a firm prediction, but does expect the Sixers to end up with more than 35 wins.

As I've mentioned before, my personal prediction is much more in-line with this more optimistic view. But that's a story for tomorrow's (and the rest of the week's) posts.