Inside the Sixers: Sense and insensibility

HOUSTON - The phrase du jour is basketball sense.

Need to see it used in a sentence?

The 76ers will trade Andre Iguodala only if it makes "basketball sense."

As the NBA's Feb. 18 trading deadline approaches, this has become the Sixers' company line, tossed over all rumored trade scenarios: Iguodala for Tracy McGrady's expiring contract? Iguodala for Amar'e Stoudemire's possibly expiring contract?

Nah, those deals make financial sense. Those don't make on-the-court, hard-core, basketball sense.

The phrase is quite clever, really, loaded with all kinds of twists and turns, meaning nothing while pretending to mean something.

On Feb. 18, when Sixers general manager Ed Stefanski holds his conference call explaining a trade or the lack of one, what couldn't be shoved under the umbrella of "basketball sense"?

If the Sixers make a trade for a player, they'll say it made basketball sense; if they make a trade for an expiring contract, they'll say it made basketball sense going forward; if they sit tight, they'll say nothing made enough basketball sense to pull the trigger.

The phrase is as versatile as Iguodala's game.

And, of course, the phrase is ironic: How many Sixers fans still trust the basketball sense of the men charged with deciding what makes basketball sense?

Not many.

And why should they?

Most Sixers fans are frustrated that they've been forced into a situation where rooting against victories seems not just rational but necessary. They've been told for three years there's a plan - a young, talented nucleus around which the team is building - only to witness a succession of moves that appear contrary to this plan. And now we've reached the point where the franchise has made it clear anyone on the roster could be traded.

Some plan.

The Sixers are 19-31, bad enough to probably miss the playoffs, but not bad enough for a franchise-changing draft pick.

Those fans who care enough - there are a few thousand - mostly hold one of two opinions: either the fault lies with coach Eddie Jordan, who's mismanaged a capable roster, or the roster is poorly assembled, just a random collection of decent spare parts.

In either case, Stefanski is left holding the deflated basketball. If the coach is the issue, Stefanski hired him. If the roster is the problem, he assembled it.

This isn't a mid-major college basketball program offering an eight-year leash: four years waiting for the previous coach's recruits to graduate and four more to recruit your own.

Either you've made the right moves and you start winning, or you haven't and you start losing.

It's not that complicated.

But what seems to be happening - highlighted by this new phrase, basketball sense - is a stubbornness that's becoming detrimental to any progress.

The Sixers had a plan. They tried to execute the plan. The plan is failing.

This season is playing like a mad scramble to plug holes: It might have begun with hiring Jordan and his gimmicky offense in May; it continued with the signing of Allen Iverson in November; and now it has come to sitting rookie Jrue Holiday for most second halves.

So what does make basketball sense?

Trading Iguodala makes sense. You think Iguodala is worried about leaving the Sixers? He's probably praying to the basketball gods each night that Stefanski trades him to Phoenix or Houston.

Let him go, collect the cap space along with one good up-and-comer (for example, Houston's Chase Budinger), and start over. Stefanski has the basketball sense to design a new plan, but not if he's unwilling to admit the previous one's failure.

There's no sense of purpose on the Sixers right now. They drift from city to city, winning a few, losing a few, collecting a paycheck. Do these players sense they're the foundation for something greater?

Not a chance.

And neither does the fan base.

Read Kate Fagan's 76ers blog, Deep Sixer, and join her in a live chat today at 5 p.m. at http://go.philly.com/sports.

Posted 01:32 a.m., 02/06/2010

Unjustly Censored

In the NBA, "RockBottom" is 100 percent necessary to reach a championship. The problem with that in Philadelphia is that you have a current GM who has instituted a plan, and before you close all hatches and dive fast and dive deep for the bottom, that GM must admit that his plan failed. In general, modern high-paid GMs do not do that. In particular, Stefanski's "value back" comment has dug his heels into the "we ain't that bad" position. So, in the general and the particular, RockBottom via TeamBlowup is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. More pressure is required, and the only avenue left with that strategy is a crowd of only 3,872 people at Dollar Dog Night at the Wachovia Center. Team attendance must reach ghost town levels or nothing will happen. When that happens - and if it happens before the trading deadling - TeamBlowup will be activated. Until that time, pro basketball is in a sad state in this town.EndText