Brand get hurs. Sixers get better.

Well, I know that first part happened. The verdict on the second part of that title is still up for debate. But the results since he was hurt have been somewhat positive. Checking the schedule...the Sixers are 6-6 since Brand got hurt (including the game against the Bucks in which he got hurt) and just 10-14 before the injury.

Hmm.... Not a huge difference, but certainly everyone's view of how they're doing seems to have changed. I guess expectations will do that to you-- going sub-.500 with Brand was considered a let-down, but going .500 without him is considered playing well.

In all fairness to Brand, this "hot streak" is probably less impressive than it seems. After all, the Sixers have simply beaten the sub-.500 teams and lost to the above-.500 teams during this stretch. They did beat the Rockets, but they also lost to the Pacers to balance it out.

Still, it does appear that the Sixers are playing a little bit better. Much of the talk of the Sixers' "improvement" over the last couple of weeks has centered on their return to a running style of play that wasn't possible with Brand.

Maybe that's the answer, but the answer might actually be a bit simpler-- Brand simply wasn't playing that well, so having someone else take his playing time has made the Sixers better. It was a change in players, not a change in style that has been making the difference.

After Mo Cheeks was fired, Professor Berri took a look at the Sixers over at the Wages of Wins. Back in 2006-07 (pre-injury), Brand had a WP48 of .213. But before his injury this season, Brand only had a WP48 of .075. Remember-- .100 is an average player (and average starters are even higher), so Brand was playing worse than an average NBA player. And he was playing 35 minutes per game.

Samuel Dalembert (.138), Marreese Speights (.127), and Reggie Evans (.121) all had higher WP48 than Brand, but none of them were playing nearly the minutes he had played. So when you take Brand out of the rotation, all of a sudden the Sixers improve.

Now, Brand isn't alone in playing below expectations. From our core contributors, WP48 shows Dalembert, Thaddeus Young, Evans, and Louis Williams all playing worse than last year. (Igoudala has actually been playing better this year according to WP48, despite his scoring woes.) Still, Brand was playing worse than the other bigs. Not exactly what we were hoping for out of our big off-season acquisition.

Here's hoping that Brand's performance is just the result of him still not being 100% healthy after his major injury from before, and that he'll get better once he returns from his curent injury.

So Long, Mo. Thanks for the memories.

Guess I missed the news. I'm sitting here watching the Sixers-Wizards game (I live in D.C. right now, so the game is on TV. Glad that I'm finally getting to watch a game.), and about half-way through the second quarter I hear the announcers mentioning the Sixers new interim head coach. Somehow I hadn't seen the news before now (I know the change was only made earlier today, but still...).

I know the generic reasons given for firing Mo Cheeks-- need to shake up the team, underperforming, etc.-- but I can't say I'm a big fan of the move. And that's coming from someone who's never thought Cheeks was anything more than an average coach. As my last post talked about, Cheeks was basically playing everyone the minutes that was expected. If the problem is that Andre Igoudala, Elton Brand, and Samuel Dalembert are playing worse than expected, then I don't see how getting rid of Cheeks helps anything. I especially don't see how it helps in the case of Igoudala and Dalembert-- after all, he was also the coach when they played really well last year.

So what do I expect? I expect the Sixers to start playing better and finish the season with somewhere between 40 and 50 wins. They have a few easy games over the next week that they should win (including tonight's game and next Friday's game against the Wizards that I'm going to!), so I expect the "improved" play to start right away. Of course, that's what I was expecting before the firing. Stefanski will get credit for shaking things up, and really it'll just be the players returning to their normal performance level.

As long as the Sixers start playing better I guess I won't be too bothered by the coaching change. After all, I don't follow the Sixers to watch the coach!

Update: I meant to post these two links from ESPN on the firing (by John Hollinger and Marc Stein) for a more detailed take on the firing. Take a look!

Jobs take a lot of time. And what the 1980s Sixers can tell us about Elton Brand.

I know. Captain obvious speaking. And, yes, I did have a job all of last year. But I started working at my law firm last Monday (the 15th), and I feel like I haven't had a chance to breath since then. I had none work related stuff going on as well (all good things), but since I tend to not write that much about my non-basketball personal life here I'll just leave it at that. But needless to say, the spare time that I use to sporadically post about the Sixers and basketball took the hit.

I had a few spare moments tonight, so I browsed around my usual haunts (Truehoop, Wages of Wins). And, as usual, Professor Berri (at WoW) had an interesting post up about the Sixers--or, at least, the Sixers from the early 1980s.

In particular, in his post artfully titled "What Ever Happened to "Fo'-Fi'-Fo'"?", he focused on how the Sixers went from very good to NBA champions to first round losers. It's very interesting, so I'd go read it all.

But the upshot (for you lazy people who just want my take on things...) is that you can tie both the Sixers rise and fall primarily to Moses Malone. In his first season with the Sixers, he was fantastic, posting a WP48 of .378 and producing 23 wins. The next year he was still the Sixers' best player, posting a WP48 of .268 (Dr. J had a WP48 of .241 in both seasons) and producing 14.6 wins. But as you can see in those numbers, Malone wasn't nearly the player in the second season that he was in the first season. That said, he was still elite (top 10 in Wins Produced), but no longer super-elite (top 3 behind Magic Johnson and Larry Bird). The difference just goes to show you that even when a player has a very good season, he might not be quite the difference maker that he had been in the past or was expected to be.

And for the current Sixers, that should serve as a warning about getting too hopeful about Elton Brand taking the Sixers into the top tier of the league's teams. In 2005-06, Brand posted a WP48 of .274. In 2006-07, he posted a WP48 of .213. In his injury shortened 2007-08, Brand posted a WP48 of .058. Setting aside last season, we still see a huge difference between Brand's 2005-06 season and his 2006-07 season. At least we do looking at WP48. But I don't think the difference appeared that large to people (like myself) when watching him play. When I saw him play, in both seasons, I was just left with the impression that "Wow. He's a very good player."

And he was. But he was a better "very good player" in 2005-06. I haven't done a WP48 based prediction for the Sixers this year yet (although I hope to soon, especially since last year's prediction turned out to be pretty accurate in overall results), but I expect that the Sixers will be an elite team if the 2005-06 Elton Brand shows up in Philly, yet only a strong playoff team if the 2006-07 Elton Brand shows up. In both cases, we'll think we got a very good player (and we'd be right!), but the case study of the Sixers from the early 1980s and Moses Malone tells us that which version of the "very good player" shows up can make all the difference in the world.

The Elton Brand chase

The big news this summer has obviously been the Elton Brand signing. We've discussed the signing fairly extensively already (disbelief that we were really in the chase, excitement at the actual signing, evaluating whether Brand made the right choice in choosing the Sixers over the Clippers), but we obviously can't have a round-up of the Sixers' moves this off-season without evaluating the Brand signing.

For the purposes of this analysis, it's important to recognize that the chase for Elton Brand actually involved two transactions by the Sixers- (1) the trade of Calvin Booth and Rodney Carney to the Timberwolves, and (2) the actual signing of Elton Brand.

First, let's look at the trade of Booth and Carney.

When it comes to Booth, it quickly becomes apparent that the Sixers didn't lose anything by trading him away. He didn't play enough minutes to be evaluated by Adjusted +/-, but his PER (7.11) and WP48 (-0.033) don't exactly inspire confidence. It's hard to imagine that whoever takes his limited minutes this upcoming season won't be an improvement.

The Carney story is somewhat similar. Carney's PER (12.15) and WP48 (-0.032) are both somewhat dismal. However, his adjusted +/- is actually quite good (1.54). Still, going with our "majority rules" principle, I think that we can make the assumption that trading away Carney isn't going to have a negative impact on the Sixers' performance this year.

So not only did trading away Booth and Carney create the cap room needed to sign Elton Brand, but the act of trading them away also removed some deadweight from the roster (clearly the case with Booth, likely the case with Carney). Good work.

Next, we turn to the actual signing of Elton Brand.

I (along with everyone else) thought the Sixers scored a real coup by signing Brand. Looking at the numbers is a little tricky since Brand was hurt for most of last year, but I think they bear out everyone's intuition that signing Brand was a good move. The only question raised by the numbers is whether Brand was worth the max money he received.

Brand didn't play enough minutes last season to have an adjusted +/- calculated for him, but he had a PER of 18.04 and a WP48 of .058. His PER was good (although lower than Igoudala's), but his WP48 last season was below average. Of course, if you go back to the 2006-07 season (i.e. when he wasn't injured), Brand had a WP48 of .213. And if you go back to 2005-06, Brand had a whopping WP48 of .274. Plus, Brand's career average PER is 22.7.

What do these numbers say to me? If Brand can return to his form from three years ago, then he'll be worth every penny of the money we gave him. Even if he doesn't return all the way to that standard, but simply returns to close to his 2006-07 form then it was still a signing that will signficantly help the Sixers on the floor this coming season.

Signing a top-tier low-post scoring threat wasn't exactly on the list of most desperate needs, but it sure isn't a move you can argue with-- act while the iron is hot and all those other good expressions. And the addition of Brand does actually help the Sixers' bench by moving Reggie Evans to the back-up power forward spot and allowing Thaddeus Young to play more at small forward.

All in all, a very nice move.

Great for the Sixers. Great for Brand? -- Part III

The Sixers are clearly a better team with Elton Brand than they were without him. In my last two posts, I've investigated the related question of whether Elton Brand made the right decision (in terms of being on the better team) by choosing the Sixers over the Clippers.

What I've found so far is that both PER and Adjusted +/- indicate that Brand made the correct choice in signing with the Sixers. To finish my trilogy of posts on the subject, today I'm going to see what Wins Produced (WP48, to be precise) has to say about this analysis.

And related to Wins Produced, Professor Berri put up an article the other day on how Brand's presence will help the Sixers. In addition to being as interesting as all his posts, his post made it very easy for me to find all the Sixers' WP48 information in one location. Thanks, Professor!

(He also put one up that details how the Clippers acquisition of Camby helps make up for the loss of Brand, but how the Clippers still aren't a particularly good team.)

Professor Berri also put up a post in May that looked at the Clippers' season, and that article was my source for the Clippers' WP48 information. I got my Baron Davis numbers from here.

We begin, as always, with the point guards. As with PER (but quite different from adjusted +/-), WP48 ranked Baron Davis (.177) and Andre Miller (.167) as very comparable point guards, but with Davis having the slight edge. At shooting guard position, Cutino Mobley (.029) held a slight advantage over Willie Green (-0.019). Andre Igoudala (.172) was, once again, ranked substantially ahead of Al Thornton (-0.081) (Corey Maggette, no longer with the Clippers, had a WP48 of .132). Finally, Chris Kaman (.233) was ranked ahead of Samuel Dalembert (.197), with each player having the highest WP48 on their respective teams.

As a result, based on WP48 the Clippers have an advantage at three positions while the Sixers have an advantage at just one position. However, the Sixers hold an overall edge in WP48 of .517 to .358. Thus, while a position by position comparison favors the Clippers based on WP48, the overall strength of the "other" starting four (excluding Brand) favors the Sixers.

If you move Thaddeus Young (.099) into the starting line-up as the SF and shift Andre Igoudala to the SG as seems likely to happen this year, then all of a sudden the Sixers and Clippers are back to having an advantage at two positions each. And the Sixers overall WP48 increases to .635 (increasing their advantage from .159 to .277. Again, even if Thornton improves, there's no reason to believe that he'll improve more than Young does. And I also don't think there's any reason to believe that Eric Gordon will have a better rookie season than Thornton did (or than Willie Green did last season). So if you move Young into the Sixers' starting line-up, I'd call the comparison a clear win for the Sixers.

So what have we learned?

Based on the advanced statistical metrics, it looks like the Sixers' "other" starters (excluding Brand) are better than the Clippers' "other" starters. With PER, the Clippers and Sixers each hold an advantage at two positions. With adjusted +/-, the Sixers hold an advantage at three positions. With WP48, the Clippers hold an advantage at three positions (although the positional advantage disappears when Young is inserted into the Sixers' starting line-up as seems likely to happen this season). In all three cases, the overall strength of the Sixers "other" starters is stronger than the overall strength of the Clippers "other" starters.

The verdict: Elton Brand made the right call. Welcome to Philadelphia, Mr. Brand.

(One final note: I did the comparisons using all three metrics comparing Igoudala to Thornton as the small forwards and Green to Mobley as the shooting guards because that seemed like the most accurate way to do it. Considering how interchangeable the wing positions are at times, I could have compared Igoudala to Mobley and Green to Thornton. For PER and
adjusted +/-, this change would have made no difference. For WP48, this change would have benefited the Sixers. Igoudala was better than Mobley and Thornton on all three metrics. Green was better than Mobley on two out of the three metrics, and Green was also better than Thornton on all three metrics. Considering the relatively low regard in which I view Green as a player, I found it a little shocking that he "outscored" Thornton on all three metrics, especially when you consider how well-regarded Thornton appears to be among Clippers fans. Statistical measures aren't the be-all and end-all (and Thornton was just a rookie), but if I were a Clippers fan I think these results would make me seriously question my belief in Al Thornton as a savior of the franchise.)

Great for the Sixers. Great for Brand? -- Part II

In my previous post, I compared the Sixers' and Clippers' "other" starting four (apart from Elton Brand) based on PER to try and see whether Brand made a mistake in deciding to come to the Sixers if he was just concerned about being a part of the better basketball team. Based strictly on the PER numbers, the decision to sign with the Sixers appeared to be the correct one.

Today I'll be checking to see if Adjusted +/- gives a different take on the situation.

You can find adjusted +/- stats at basketballvalue.com. Sixers stats are here; Clippers stats are here. Baron Davis's stats from the Warriors come from here.

Looking at the point guards, Baron Davis (6.29) has by far the highest +/- of any of the eight "starting" players, while Andre Miller (-8.70) has by far the lowest. Compare that result to PER, which ranks Davis ahead of Miller, but only slightly. Also in contrast to PER, but this time in a good way for the Sixers, adjusted +/- ranks Samuel Dalembert (0.73) ahead of Chris Kaman (-2.23)

As expected with the shooting guards, Cutino Mobley (-3.63) and Willie Green (-0.75) both fall in the negative range, although surprisingly (at least to me) Green isn't in the realm of the terrible. On the other wing, Andre Igoudala (4.95) unsurprisingly trounces Al Thornton (-5.57). Corey Maggette (3.88) had a very respectable adjusted +/- (just as with PER), but he's no longer with the Clippers.

So based on adjusted +/-, the Sixers hold an advantage at three of the four positions. In addition, the Sixers' adjusted +/- total is -3.77 -- bad, but still better than the Clippers' overall total of -5.14.

As discussed with PER, this total ignores the likelihood that the Sixers slide Igoudala to the SG position and insert Thaddeus Young into the starting line-up at SF. Based on adjusted +/-, this change makes a huge difference in favor of the Sixers since Young had an extravagantly high adjusted +/- of 12.33 (not a typo; he had the third best adjusted +/- in the league last season). Putting Young in the starting line-up would leave the Sixers with their advantage at three positions, but it would increase the Sixers' overall total to 9.31-- increasing their advantage over the Clippers from 1.37 to 14.45.

I can't imagine Young will have such a high adjusted +/- next season. But even assuming he regresses towards an average performance and Thornton improves (as Clipper fans expect), it still seems like the Sixers come out ahead in this analysis. And I don't think anyone should expect Eric Gordon to put up better numbers this year than Cutino Mobley did last year, so I really don't see the addition of Gordon making much of a difference to this analysis either. I guess it's possible that if you just say Thornton improves and Green remains in the starting line-up than the Clippers can overcome the 1.37 adjusted +/- difference that exists between the starting line-ups based on what happened last season. But then again, we could make any assumption we want about how people will perform next year (after all, anything can happen) if we want to reach a certain result. So I think that we should just stick with the numbers from last season for now.

I will say that I was shocked to see that Miller did so poorly in adjusted +/-. He's generally considered a very good, if not quite top tier, point guard. Watching him play, he always seems to be doing positive things. In terms of the other advanced stats, he ranks well in PER, and I know that he also does well under Wins Produced (which I'll look at tomorrow). Hmm. Definitely something to think about.

(One side note-- Reggie Evans had an adjusted +/- of 2.75 last season, third best on the team. He'll most likely get reduced minutes to some extent with the arrival of Brand, but if he gets the vast majority of the back-up big man minutes (in a three man rotation of Brand, Dalembert, and Evans) then the Sixers will be very solid up front according to adjusted +/-.)

So what have we learned so far about whether Brand made a good basketball decision to sign with the Sixers over the Clippers?

According to PER, the Sixers and Clippers each have an advantage at two positions, but the Sixers are stronger overall.

Adjusted +/- leans even more in the Sixers favor, giving the Sixers an advantage at three positions, as well as an overall advantage.

Check back tomorrow to see what Wins Produced has to say on the matter.

Great for the Sixers. Great for Brand? -- Part I

There's no question that the Sixers are a much better team with Elton Brand than without him. Somewhat lost in the hubbub around Brand's decision to come to the Sixers is whether the move is good for Brand in a basketball sense-- that is, are Brand's chances of winning with the Sixers better than they would have been if he had stayed with the revamped Clippers.

The one place that this question has been most frequently raised (the only place, really, that I've come across it) is on the Clipper fan blogs, notably Clips Nation. From the perspective of many Clippers fans, Brand went to a situation with the Sixers that is decidedly worse than the one he would have had in L.A.

In particular, I noticed that Clipper fans were saying that the "other" starting four on the Clippers was clearly better than the "other" starting four on the Sixers. I wasn't quite clear on how they were coming to this conclusion, so I asked for clarification in the comments to this thread. I noted that going solely by Player Efficiency Rating, the Sixers and Clippers each seemed to have better players at two of the four positions, but overall the Sixers scored higher. I got some interesting and thoughtful responses from some of their posters. I didn't necessarily agree with their conclusions, but they definitely were well thought out and had plenty of merit.

So, first, I suggest you go click on the links above and read the exchange there (particularly the responses from Citizen Zhiv and Clipper Steve). Second, I thought I'd reproduce my side of the argument related to PER here, and expand it to also include the results based on looking at Adjusted +/- (Part II) and Wins Produced.

So, setting aside Elton Brand, do the Sixers or Clippers have the better starting line-up? To start with, I'll assume that the Sixers start the same players at the other four positions as last season-- Andre Miller, Willie Green, Andre Igoudala, and Samuel Dalembert. I'll also assume that the Clippers start the same players as last year, only with the recently signed Baron Davis at point guard.

(Note- these next three paragraphs are copied from my comments at Clips Nation. I've put changes in brackets.)

Based on PER [(found here; average PER for the league is 15.00)], Baron Davis (19.87) is slightly ahead of Andre Miller (18.51), Willie Green (12.91) and Cutino Mobley (11.56) are both pretty bad, but Green ranks slightly higher, Andre Igoudala (19.05) is far ahead of any Clipper SF (Maggette was at 19.43, but he’s not a Clipper anymore; Al Thornton was at 12.71), and Chris Kaman (17.62) gets the nod over Samuel Dalembert (15.62).

That gives PER totals of Clippers 61.76 and Sixers 66.09. So according to PER, the Sixers and Clippers each have an advantage at two positions, but the Sixers have the overall advantage. If you assume the Sixers will start Thaddeus Young (16.58) at SF this year and play Igoudala at SG, then the Sixers and Clippers still each have an advantage at two positions, but the Sixers’ overall advantage increases by 3.67 PER.

If [Clippers fans are] assuming that Thornton is going to improve, I don’t see any reason to assume that he’ll improve more than Young. If [Clipper fans are] assuming that Eric Gordon will make the difference (i.e. he’ll play SG and be better than Willie Green), then that doesn’t take into account the plan for the Sixers to switch Igoudala to that position (or my belief that Gordon is unlikely to do any better than Thornton’s rookie PER which was less than Green’s PER last season).

So, all in all, PER indicates that the Sixers have the stronger starting line-up, although it's a close call in many ways.

I think the response of the Clippers fans (and clink on this link to read their full comments if you haven't already) can be summed up as (1) PER is not the be-all, end-all metric for player evaluation (agreed!), (2) the difference between Kaman/Davis and Dalembert/Miller is actually much greater than PER indicates, (3) Thornton is much better than PER indicates, and (4) the Clippers have more (and better) shot creators, and that makes a big difference in close games and playoff games.

The first three responses are all basically subsets of the same argument that PER has flaws. I don't disagree with this point, but I'm not entirely convinced that their views on the relative abilities of the players involved is the correct one (notably, I'm not nearly as impressed with Thornton as they are). As for the fourth response, I'd say-- yes, the Clippers have better creators overall, but I think this advantage is maybe a tad overblown in the importance given to it relative to all the other aspects of a basketball game.

Am I right or are they? Who knows. You can let me know what you think in the comments.

And what does Adjusted +/- say about this debate? Check out my next post to find out.

(And since we're talking Clippers, I just saw in this post at Clips Nation that Marcus Camby has been traded to the Clippers from the Nuggets. And he was traded for basically nothing-- a trade exception and the ability to swap 2nd round picks. Wow, what a steal.)

We got him! We got him!

Wow. We got Elton Brand. Woo-hoo!

For the details, go here.

And for a positive assessment of what this means for the Sixers, go here:

Are the Philadelphia 76ers, as presently constituted, good enough to win the East in the 2008-09 season? Doubtful.

But are the Sixers good enough to win a playoff series or two and scare the bejeezus out of Detroit and Boston? You bet. And if they add a shooter and get another year of growth from all their young studs, will they be in position to win the conference in 2010? Absolutely.

The Elton Brand mirage (?)I

If the Sixers were able to sign Elton Brand, I can't even begin to describe how happy I'd be. He's a great player, plus he fits the Sixers need for a strong low-post presence.

I was in the middle of writing that despite how excited I'd be and the flurry of articles today about the possibility, I seriously doubted that the Sixers were in real contention for his services. Then I went to ESPN.com to try and find links to the articles that I'd read on the topic earlier today, and I came across this article:

NBA front-office sources told ESPN.com on Tuesday that Brand has informed the Sixers that he will accept a five-year deal worth an estimated $82 million and spurn what was presumed to be a slam-dunk return to the Los Angeles Clippers to hook up with Clipper-to-be Baron Davis.

I mean...wow. Just, wow.

(I'm speechless)

(As a side note, all the articles from earlier in the day have been replaced by updated versions that include this more recent information, so no links to them. Sorry.)

As the articles from earlier today hinted (and this most recent article stated), the Sixers are creating more room under the salary cap to make this signing possible by trading Rodney Carney, Calvin Booth, and a first round pick to the Timberwolves for a second round pick and/or a part of a trade exception (depending on which article you read-- the trade has only been agreed to in principle at this point). It seems odd to trade away players for basically nothing, but I wasn't too bothered by the trade because I haven't been very impressed by Carney and hopefully the Sixers first round pick won't be a good one in coming years. If this trade actually makes it possible for the Sixers to sign Brand, I'll be one happy camper.

If I'm a Clippers fan, then I'm definitely one unhappy camper. And I'd probably feel a little used. After all, when Brand opted out of the last year of his contract, he talked about how he planned on resigning with the Clippers and was opting out in part to give the Clippers more payroll flexibility so they could get him some better support. So what happens? The Clippers go out and reach an agreement in principle with Baron Davis, using some of the money that could have been used for Brand, and Brand (apparently) agrees to sign with another team for less than the Clippers could have originally offered him (but more than the current offer). And less than the Warriors are offering. Huh.

(If you're keeping track, the reported offers are: Sixers, 5 years, $82 milliion; Clippers, 5 years, $75 million; Warriors, 5 years, $90 million.)

I guess we'll find out what's really going on tomorrow. And in the mean time, for a well-balanced, let's-not-get-all-hysterical-quite-yet take on the situation from the perspective of a Clippers fan, you can go here. For a Sixers fan, this paragraph is probably the key insight:

Look, we don't have any more information from Elton today than we did last Monday night. It's a little nerve-wracking, I'll grant you that. But we suspected most of this would happen from the start, didn't we? We suspected Philly would try to get in the game. We suspected (after the first day or so), that Elton would take his time and listen to everyone, if only to do his due diligence. Did Philly shed contracts in order to squeeze out a bigger offer to EB because of 'smoke signals coming from Brand's teepee' as John Hollinger so politically incorrectly put it? Maybe, maybe not. Remember, they've got their sights set on Josh Smith too, and a bigger offer there is just as relevant as a bigger offer to Brand. They'll offer the money to Brand first for two reasons - one, he's better. But more importantly, he's unrestricted and can answer with a simple 'yes' or 'no'. With Smith, if they make the offer and he accepts it, Atlanta has 7 days to match, which could tie up Philly's money for 7 days. So an offer to Smith precludes an offer to Brand. So you go after Brand first, whether or not it's a long shot.

The idea that the Sixers have a more exciting team for Brand to join just doesn't ring true. Andre Miller? EB's been there and done that, and even if he thought Andre was a great piece of the puzzle there, this is pretty clearly his last season in Philly. So I hardly see Miller as a big draw. Does Elton want to get into the Eastern Conference where he can make the all star team and the playoffs without breaking a sweat? Maybe. But I fail to see the Sixers as having a more promising future than the Clippers with Baron Davis.

(I disagree that the Clippers have a brighter future than the Sixers, but everyone thinks a little more highly of their own team's future)

Put a fork in the Clippers. They're done.

Bad news for Clippers fans. According to this report on ESPN.com, Elton Brand ruptured his left Achilles tendon yesterday during his daily workout. He'll be out for at least six months, but could be out for as much as a full year. Without Brand, I just don't see the Clippers being very competitive in the Western Conference. Even if he comes back after just six months, the Clips will probably be too far behind in the standings to make a legitimate run at the playoffs. It's a shame, because I really enjoyed watching the Clippers during their playoff run two years ago. They regressed a little last year, but I was hoping that they'd regain their mojo this year. Brand's injury, coming on the heel of Shaun Livingston's rather gruesome knee injury last year, probably puts the kabosh on that hope.