Originally posted by Joe Mama
I just read again that Houston is denying that they are at all interested in moving Francis. Also, I have trouble believing that Philadelphia would trade AI for Francis alone because Iverson is so popular in Philadelphia.
Joe Mama
The Philly papers seem to agree:
Philadelphia Inquirer
76ers need to turn talk into action
By Joe Juliano
Inquirer Staff Writer
DENVER - The 76ers named a new head coach, and the team's top guns - Allen Iverson and Glenn Robinson - pledged their support and cooperation.
"I'm going to try to help Coach as much as I can," Iverson said. "I know the situation he's been put in. I want to be a part of his success. I want to be the dog in his yard that will bite."
"I'm a ballplayer," Robinson said. "I can make any kind of adjustment, any kind of transition. Whatever they want me to play, that's what I get paid to do."
The words sounded genuine. But they weren't said after Chris Ford took over last Tuesday. They were said during training camp last fall, before the Sixers had played a game under Randy Ayers. And they turned hollow.
The Sixers went 21-31 during Ayers' abbreviated stewardship. He didn't get much bite from Iverson or the Sixers' other veterans. Robinson openly complained about playing time and suggested that the team hadn't acquired him for his defense. But this is pro sports, and, naturally, Ayers took the fall.
So with 29 games to go in their regular season, with the Sixers facing the Denver Nuggets tonight, what should make their increasingly disgruntled fan base think that things are going to be different now that Ford, not Ayers, is driving them?
The players' talk after Ford's first game as head coach, a rout of the Washington Wizards, was positive and supportive.
Then again, as we've seen all season, talk is cheap. Iverson proved that last night, failing to appear for practice when the Sixers reunited after the all-star break to prepare for tonight's game.
"You've got to respect Coach as a person," Iverson had said after Wednesday's win over the Wizards. "Then you respect him as a basketball coach. Once you have that respect for him, it makes everything easier because you understand he's doing what he's doing to try to make us a better team. It's all about being professional and trying to get done what he wants us to get done."
"We have to try and stay consistent with what he's trying to get accomplished and win games," Eric Snow added. "We've still got an opportunity to change [the season] and need to come out and play with a sense of urgency and awareness."
The Sixers haven't played consistently with urgency and awareness through their first 53 games. They have not won back-to-back games since Jan. 7 and 9. They have followed their best performances with poor ones. The last time they steamrolled a team, beating the Los Angeles Lakers, 96-73, on Feb. 5, they were pounded by the Boston Celtics, 110-80, in their next start.
So can Ford, who was Ayers' top assistant, succeed where Ayers did not?
"There's a lot of things this team needs to improve on," he said after the Washington win. "It's going to be a daily progression. We just can't be satisfied.
"I'm not going to ask [the players] to do anything that I'm not going to do. I expect that we're going to coach and they're going to play - and play like the professionals they are."
A lot of the story will be told right away, during the three-game Western trip that starts tonight and includes dates against Seattle on Thursday and the Lakers on Friday.
The three games will give the players and those who watch them an indication of Ford's coaching style. Considered a screamer in his earlier days as a head coach with Boston, Milwaukee and the Los Angeles Clippers, he says that he is more mellow now.
Ford encouraged his players in the victory over the Wizards, but it was easy when things were going the Sixers' way. It remains to be seen how he will deal with the players in tough times, especially when it comes to the volatile issue of minutes.
The Sixers have played better after the all-star break than before it in each of the last two seasons. Last season, they went 23-10 to end the season, got the No. 4 seeding in the East, and reached the conference semifinals before losing to Detroit.
Iverson said that the Sixers' goal was to go 22-7 in their last 29 games. That would give them 44 wins, which would probably get them in the playoffs easily.
The East is so weak that Sixers resume play just a half-game out of the eighth and final playoff spot, leading to a guess that 37 or 38 wins could get them to the postseason.
There is one immediate roadblock. The NBA trading deadline looms at 3 p.m. Thursday, and many of the Sixers have their eyes on their rearview mirrors to see whether Billy King, the team's president and general manager, makes a deal.
With Iverson virtually an untouchable, Snow is probably the Sixer with the most trade value. There has been talk of the point guard's going to Orlando for forward Juwan Howard and shooting guard Gordan Giricek, but the Magic and other teams might balk at taking Snow because of the contract extension he signed before this season that will take him through the 2008-09 season.
"With what we've done this season and where we're at, who in this locker room can say to Billy King that he shouldn't try to make the team better?" Snow said. "Who's given him a reason not to think that way? He wants to make this team better. That's what he's supposed to do."
Whether King does anything, the players have to remind themselves of their commitment to the team - something they forgot with Ayers in charge.
If they are going to play like professionals, respect their coach, and act on what he says, they must start doing it and keep doing it.
