Sixers brass thinks offseason moves point team in right direction

ORLANDO - As if playing five games in 5 days at the Orlando Summer League wasn't dizzying enough for the 76ers, they decided to be almost as active off the court.

With Friday's reported imminent signing of center Kwame Brown, the Sixers appear to have most of their roster in order for the upcoming season. It would seem that the starting lineup for coach Doug Collins will be Jrue Holiday at point, Evan Turner at the "two" guard, Andre Iguodala at small forward, Spencer Hawes at power forward and Brown at center. That leaves a pretty good scoring group coming off the bench, including Thaddeus Young, newly acquire shooters Dorell Wright and Nick Young, and power forward Lavoy Allen. Rookies Maurice Harkless and Arnett Moultrie and second-year center Nikola Vucevic might be hard pressed to find much time, at least at the beginning of the season.

Friday, before the team's final Summer League game at the Magic's practice facility, Collins and president Rod Thorn spoke with the media about the recent moves, about letting Elton Brand and Lou Williams depart and where this franchise is headed.

First the losses. While Williams signed a deal with his hometown team Atlanta Hawks, the 3-year, $15 million contract certainly appeared within the Sixers budget. But, according to Collins and Thorn, it was Williams who turned the team down, figuring he could get a better deal elsewhere.

"Our intent was to have Lou back, but as it went on, as you do, you start looking at different things, and we ended up just going in a different direction," Thorn said. "As we addressed our team, our feeling was we had about maxed our team out as it was constituted. Doug and his guys did a tremendous job the past 2 years in getting this team to where they actually got it. But there comes a time where you need to make some changes, and our feelings were we needed to go in that direction, and that's what we ended up doing."

Said Collins: "Every scenario that we had was with Lou being here. We offered him a 3-year contract, 4-year contract, 5-year contract. Our intent was for Lou to be back, but when the number got to a certain point where Rod was told [by Williams' representatives] we had to move from there."

As for Brand, who will turn 34 next season, using the amnesty clause was necessary to fill pieces, not necessarily to try to land a big-time acquisition.

"We knew if we tried to come back with the same team that we didn't think we'd be as good," Collins said. "That's not to take away anything to what our team was, but we thought we had to try to do some things. Had we re-signed Spencer and we had re-signed Lou and kept our team together with E.B., we would have been a luxury tax team. So some of the things you have to do is you have to make decisions. When we amnestied Elton, we talked about how maybe not every day you hit a home run, but can you add pieces that make you better, and I think Rod has done a great job with that. You might look out there and say 'Well, they didn't hit any home runs. But have they addressed some of the needs?' To do that, we had to amnesty E.B. and we would have had no flexibility at all."

While the additions of Nick Young and Wright does give the team the big outside shooters it hasn't had in quite some time, it brings to question how all of these long, athletic wings will be able to play together.

"At the end of the year, when Doug and I sat down with our basketball people, we talked about the things that we needed," Thorn said. "We needed to get bigger; we needed to get stronger, and we needed to get some better shooting. With some of the moves that we've done so far, we think that we've really helped in those type areas."

Said Collins, before it was known of the Brown addition: "If you look at our perimeter right now with Dre, Evan and Jrue and right now coming off the bench with Nick and Dorell, we think we're bigger, we think we have better shooting, and we think the pieces will fit together there very well. I think the biggest question for us right now is our front-line situation."

The Sixers also are counting on Hawes, after re-signing him Friday to a contract that a source close to the situation said is worth $6 million over 2 years.

"We're going to pencil Spencer in obviously as one of our starters, and then how do the pieces fit so that everybody can play together?" Collins said. "That will be up to me and to our staff to try and figure that out."

In Wright and Nick Young, the team added a pair of players both under 1-year contracts. Brown reportedly is signing for only 2 years. Iguodala still has just 2 years left on his contract and Hawes reupped for two more seasons. All that means there is quite a bit of money coming to the Sixers in the not-too-distant future, giving them some financial flexibility - something they haven't had in quite a long time.

"We've done very well financially, which I think is a real key," Collins said. "I think Rod has done a great job of structuring our situation, where we think we've added some really good pieces, but at the same time, as you look forward, you always want that opportunity to be able to get better down the road, and we think we've done that."

In the next few months, we shall see.

Contact Bob Cooney at cooneyb@phillynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @BobCooney76. For more Sixers coverage and opinion, read his blog at www.philly.com/Sixerville.