As I watched the 76ers blow yet another fourth quarter lead (led by 7 points at mid-way mark last night),  and lose for the seventh straight night since the All-Star Game break and ninth in a row overall, I couldn’t help and think back to the amazing contest between the Warriors and Thunder I witnessed this past weekend.

As the Sixers were getting destroyed by John Wall (16 points in final stanza) during the fourth quarter it dawned on me that the Sixers were about to be “officially” eliminated  from playoff contention (Insert joke here).  For the fourth straight year the 76ers would not participate in the NBA’s post season and as I contemplated that idea as well as just how far away the 76ers are from being a competitive force, I jotted down several random thoughts about the 76ers that crossed my mind.

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This edition of “Fo’ with the Foes” – Philadunkia’s advanced scouting series which with the help of an accomplished journalist from around the NBA beat or blog world, previews key upcoming 76ers games – features tonight’s opponent, the Sacramento Kings who are in an ugly slide right now (4 straight L’s; 2-8 in last 10) and feature enough internal drama to star in their own reality TV show.

After the jump, I’ll look at Fo’ key items for tonight’s game.  Additionally, we’ll get a little more insight into this Sacramento team the Sixers face tonight from our colleague William Griffith at sactownroyalty.com, as William will answer Fo’ questions on his Kings squad from us here at Philadunkia.

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This edition of “Fo’ with the Foes” – Philadunkia’s advanced scouting series which with the help of an accomplished journalist from around the NBA beat or blog world, previews key upcoming 76ers games – features tonight’s opponent, the Atlanta Hawks who are all over the place right now (5-5 in last 10), but feature streaking point man Jeff Teague and a formidable front line.

After the jump, I’ll look a Fo’ key items for tonight’s game. Additionally, we’ll get a little more insight into this Atlanta team the Sixers face tonight from our colleague Clayton Crowe at soaringdownsouth.com, as Clayton will answer Fo’ questions on his Hawks squad from us here at Philadunkia.

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This edition of “Fo’ with the Foes” – Philadunkia’s advanced scouting series which with the help of an accomplished journalist from around the NBA beat or blog world, previews key upcoming 76ers games – features tonight’s opponent, the Phoenix Suns who are 2-8 in their last 10 games and will not have Brandon Knight available for this contest because of a strained groin. To be honest, the 76ers should win this game.

After the jump, I’ll look a Fo’ key items for tonight’s game. Additionally, we’ll get a little more insight into this Phoenix team the Sixers face tonight from our colleague Troy Tauscher who covers the Suns for bballbreakdown.com, as Troy will answer Fo’ questions on his Suns squad from us here at Philadunkia.

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After their convincing win last night in Orlando over the Oladipo-less Magic, the 76ers (6-38) are now 2-1 in their last three games. In fact if not for a horrific free throw shooting performance (13-25 = 52%) in their MLK Day matinee game against the Knicks, Brett Brown’s squad would be riding a three game winning streak.

While a friendlier schedule has helped things, the 76ers also seem to have found some chemistry and a few answers on offense during this stretch.  I don’t know if this level of play will last very long, so after the jump let’s talk about several keys to the Sixers recent winning ways.

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Tonight’s game against the Bulls will mark the 41st contest for the 76ers (4-36) of the 2015-16 season.  Thus, it’s time for our annual mid-season edition of Philadunkia’s 4on4…

As a reminder, this Philadunkia question and answer series is “loosely based” on ESPN.com’s highly successful, NBA related series of posts titled “5on5″.  Our version of this genre of posts will ask 4 Philadunkia scribes to answer 4 topical, hot button questions about our Philadelphia 76ers.

Now you’re probably asking, “Why not simply stick with the “5on5″ format that ESPN.com uses?” 

Well as any great hoops coach will tell you — playing 4on4 is the best way to truly learn the game of basketball.

After the jump, Philadunkia scribes C. Smith, Michael Kaskey-Blomain, Jeff McMenamin and Tyler Cook will examine four questions surrounding our 76ers as we hit the mid-season pole.

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With the addition of Ish Smith (via trade for two 2nd round draft picks) and Elton Brand, it’s clear that Sam Hinkie’s “process” has been rudely interrupted by Adam Silver via Jerry Colangelo and Mike D’Antoni.  For a “process” faithful like myself Silver’s interference is an annoying development as one could argue that the 2015-16 season was Hinkie’s finest tanking draft positioning work to date.  The 76ers had never been a safer bet to finally secure the No. 1 overall draft pick than they were pre-Silver/Colangelo.

Colangelo and of course Mike D’Antoni have screwed up “the process” by adding the solid point guard (Smith) and veteran leadership (Brand) that the 2015-16 roster has desperately needed. The result has been 3 wins in their last 9 games and a sense of hope (albeit false hope) for everyone involved with the franchise.  However, if Colangelo and D’Antoni are dead-set on continuing to make the mistake of improving the Sixers in short-term, then their next move should be to help Brett Brown fix one of the worst defenses in the Association.

That will be easier said than done.

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In case you were overwhelmed with Christmas presents or too busy watching the Mummers strut their stuff, we wanted you to know that the 76ers just finished a six-game road trip in which they assembled a 2-4 record.  The “successful” road trip inspired Jahlil Okafor to declare, “We really made huge strides this road trip”. Now, please remember, Jah is a rookie so he may have gotten a little excited about the team’s play on the road trip.

While there is absolutely some truth to Jah’s statement, it should be noted that a number of the same old problems simply killed the Sixers on their recent six-game West Coast swing.

After the jump I’ll take a look at three areas of improvement during the road trip as well as three problems that continued to plague the 76ers over the last six games.

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Back in October I wrote a post detailing that in the first month or so of the 2015-16 NBA season Philadunkia nation would have to exercise a significant amount of patience with this 76ers team and “the process”. In that post, I theorized that because of injuries, learning to play together and an unfriendly opening month of the schedule that the Sixers would struggle mightily out of the gate and cause us to nearly lose our minds.

The opening month of the season went as I predicted as the Sixers played energetic and entertaining basketball (for the most part), but posted a 1-18 record.  The problems I listed back in October were a big part of the slow start to the season. However a slew of unexpected issues also came to the surface in November and December and now those issues have turned the Sixers (1-30) into a pathetic, unwatchable team on another 12 game losing streak (FYI…average margin of defeat in last ten defeats is 18 pts.).

After the jump I’ll look take a look at the unexpected issues that have pulled the 2015-16 Sixers down to a depressing depth.

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This edition of “Fo’ with the Foes” – Philadunkia’s advanced scouting series which with the help of an accomplished journalist from around the NBA beat or blog world, previews key upcoming 76ers games – features tonight’s opponent, the Atlanta Hawks who are in an awful slump right now having lost 3 in a row and 6 of their last 10. To be honest, I like the 76ers chances of stealing a win tonight.

(I can’t believe I just typed that line.)

After the jump, I’ll look a Fo’ key items for tonight’s game. Additionally, we’ll get a little more insight into this Atlanta team the Sixers face tonight from our colleague Brad Rowland at Peach Tree Hoops, as Brad will answer Fo’ questions on his Hawks squad from us here at Philadunkia.

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