Summer stasis for the Sixers

Everywhere you look in Philadelphia sports there is movement, as the dog days of summer run together like a pack hell-bent for home.

The Flyers, still three months from their next game, are leading the pack, of course. General manager Paul Holmgren has taken a brief pause from a two-week binge of signings and trades and upheaval. At least, it seems he's taken a pause. He might just be reloading, preparing to trade the Kate Smith statue for something more modern, or more Russian, or just for something completely different.

In Eagle World, the drumbeats that indicate a resolution to the lockout keep getting louder. The players are going to take a dunking, but not a complete bath. If agreement is reached within the next couple of weeks - and that certainly sounds likely - the training-camp season will arrive right on schedule.

The Eagles front office will tell anyone who listens they have plans that will be put into action the moment the lockout is lifted. It might not be a dramatic overhaul like Holmgren would recommend, but they are expected to free Kevin Kolb, get a right cornerback, and shore up the defensive line.

Meanwhile, the Phillies, the local team that is actually playing, continues to juggle injuries, player slumps, and other potential stumbling blocks, none of which have caused them to stumble yet. They are sailing toward the all-star break with the best record in baseball, on a pace to win at least 100 games, and with three potential Cy Young candidates in the rotation.

That pace will quicken after the break, and we'll find out if the Phils are able to accomplish what they were put together to do - win another World Series. Management went all-in this time, bolstering the starting staff to take advantage of the last good years of what has been the most productive offensive core in team history. Three years from now, this team figures to be in trouble, but there is history to be made before that.

And, yes, then there are the 76ers.

Every time it seems the Sixers are about to catch a break, they catch a porcupine instead. That's the case again as they finished an improved season only to have the NBA come to a complete halt at the worst time for them.

Whatever momentum was gained as new coach Doug Collins dragged the team to a .500 record is going to be sapped during what promises to be an extended lockout. If the owners are serious about instituting a hard salary cap - and if the proposed cap of $45 million is even close to accurate - this thing is going to take a while. It is even-money that the league loses a full season, as hockey did when it wrestled its own cap issues to the ice and beat them senseless.

For the Sixers, the suspended animation of the lockout comes at a terrible moment, for both the corporate end of things and for the soldiers down at the battlefield level. Comcast-Spectacor, which has been trying to move this dog for nearly a decade, was on the verge of selling the franchise to billionaire Joshua Harris for somewhere in the vicinity of $300 million.

Harris made his money in money, so he knows when to buy low and when to lay low. The Sixers are just the sort of distressed property he used to make his fortune, and there's no reason he can't make money with them as well.

But buying a business that is out of business until further notice is a little more distressing, so he's going to wait it out. He's betting that the price won't go up significantly if the hard salary cap is achieved, which will make every NBA franchise a better bet from an economic standpoint. Better take that risk than buy a stretch of road paved with tumbleweeds.

It isn't as if this appears to be a sweetheart deal. The Sixers would remain tenants of Comcast-Spectacor and would have to honor a television-rights contract that extends through 2029. Maybe Harris, the master negotiator, can turn those conditions to his advantage, or push through concessions on arena advertising signage or luxury suites or something, but Father Comcast is nobody's fool, either. This will be the sports franchise equivalent of sharecropping if the deal goes through as described, with Comcast taking the rent check and no longer worrying about pushing a plow through the rocky field of the NBA.

While all this waiting is taking place, the Sixers' front-office personnel are in the uncomfortable position of not being able to do their jobs, and not knowing if they will still hold them when everything shakes out.

The team's No. 1 roster priority is to trade Andre Iguodala, most likely for a shooting guard. The Sixers did not get that done on draft day, or the days leading up to it, because the front office was apparently told that major moves had to wait until the team changed hands. Having finally lured a squirrel near the nut, Comcast doesn't want any sudden movement that might spook it.

It is presumed that this is partly because the new ownership group would include Jason Levien, a former agent and salary-cap wonk for the Sacramento Kings who apparently expects to become the next general manager of the Sixers. This is inconvenient for the current front office, which has two guys - Rod Thorn and Ed Stefanski - either with that title or performing in that role.

Because of the pending sale and lockout, they aren't free to improve the team and are sitting on their hands instead. You can just hear the air escaping from the balloon.

Holmgren wouldn't like that. He'd probably trade Iguodala anyway, for a 43-year-old winger or a bottle of Russian dressing. It's the summer, and the only way to stay cool is to keep moving. That's what the Phillies are doing, too, and what the Eagles promise will happen just as soon as the gate opens.

And then there are the 76ers. There's always one in every crowd.