Now that the ball is no longer bouncing at the Wachovia Center for the Philadelphia 76ers’ 2009-10 campaign, players have some free time to do things outside the basketball realm.  Recently Sixers forward Marreese Speights was at the Copabanana on South Street as a guest bartender in order to raise money for the Ronald McDonald house in Philadelphia.  Speights is possibly following in the footsteps of fellow teammate Samuel Dalembert who recently received the NBA’s J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award for helping out mightily with the relief effort in Haiti.

“Helping out with the Ronald McDonald house is a great feeling,” said Speights.  “I realized that it’s harder to serve drinks then I thought it was, but I’m doing my best to help out the children.”

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To start us off, here’s a bunch of links from the Larry Brown saga:

Yesterday at the Quail Hollow Championship (PGA Tournament) in Charlotte Michael Jordan was paired with veteran golf star Fred Couples during the Pro-Am.

On the ninth tee Charlotte Bobcats coach Larry Brown went inside the ropes, hugged everybody in the group and then hung with MJ and Freddy for the rest of the round.  To us that seems like pretty unusual behavior if LB is about to pack up shop and come home to Philly.

Dei Lynam at csnphilly.com wonders if LB could be headed to LA instead of Philly?

Phil Sheridan at the Inqy writes that the 76ers should simply walk away from this whole Larry Brown idea.  Which is something we agree with 100% (more on that later).

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Haven’t we been down this road before?  The answer is yes and it was not a pretty ending the last time. 

Seven years after Larry Brown last caused a whole bunch of drama on the Philadelphia hoops scene, LB is at it again.  Think back to May 26th of 2003 and you should recall that Larry Brown resigned as the 76ers head coach because of “personal” reasons, which many at the time said were health related.  Those health problems may or may not have been caused by Brown’s tumultuous relationship with then 76ers star Allen Iverson, but one thing seemed clear back in 2003, Brown was going to be out of coaching for a time.

Or so we all thought…

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As we predicted in summer 2009, the hiring of Eddie Jordan turned out to be a huge mistake as his Princeton offense and his coaching style in general were a terrible match for this 76ers team.

However this train wreck of a season can not be blamed entirely on Jordan and his inept coaching.  Sure he’s responsible for about 75% of what went wrong this season and he deserves to be thrown under the bus repeatedly, but there were numerous other issues that helped to derail this season which were not directly connected to EJ. 

Thus we have assembled a Top 10 list of sorts that lays out ten items that went wrong with the Sixers this season that were not necessarily the fault of Eddie Jordan.

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Obviously the firing of Eddie Jordan is the big news over the last two days and boy does it feel good to finally write that line.   There are just too many articles out there we could link to regarding Jordan’s dismissal and we didn’t want this post to be two pages long, so in the interest of time we’ll just hit you with two of our favorite links regarding Jordan finally getting canned.

The first Eddie Jordan got fired link comes from Comcast SporstNet via CSNPhilly.com.  Numerous Sixers players were interviewed about Jordan’s dismissal and everyone passed on throwing EJ under the bus except Elton Brand and Thaddeus Young.  Both Brand and Young took some shots at Jordan.  Young apparently was never “comfortable” this year and felt his role was not defined enough for him to succeed.  Brand of course had issues with Jordan regarding his own playing time, but also with the lack of minutes for Jason Kapono.

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The 76ers (27-55) lost their final game of the 2009-10 in the same way they began this debacle of a season – by getting blow out by the Orlando Magic.  No one is surprised at last night’s result at all.  In fact if you didn’t take the Magic minus the 10.5 points last night, well then you haven’t been watching the Sixers for the last two months. 

But forget about all of the on-the-court stuff for now, because Kate Fagan of the Inquire is reporting this morning that Eddie Jordan has been fired already and that the Sixers will hold  a press conference at 11am today to make it official.  We all knew, including Jordan himself, that this was coming, but DAMN that was quick.  We just wonder if it went down on the plane ride home from Orlando last night or did Stefanski  and Snider at least wait until Jordan came into the office this morning before handing him a pink slip.   

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This 2009-10 season finale 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 upcoming 76ers opponents — features tonight’s opponent the playoff bound Orlando Magic, who as we all remember ended the 2008-09 season for the Sixers as well.

We’re going to keep this one very brief because while this game is going on we’re simply going to open up a beer and toast to the fact that this train wreck of a season is finally over and that the Eddie Jordan era has come to a close.  To be honest that’s all we can muster for you today.

So for a little more insight into the Magic team the Sixers face tonight, we turn to our man Philip Rossman-Reich from orlandomagicdaily.com to answer two questions on this Orlando squad from us here at Philadunkia as well as provide us with two points of analysis on the Magic from an insider’s perspective. 

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As part of ESPN’s 30 For 30 documentary series which celebrates the 30^th Anniversary of ESPN, director Steve James was given the opportunity to tell yet another story of life and basketball.  James’ first film “Hoop Dreams” is considered to be one of the greatest sports documentaries of all time.  As you may recall, “Hoops Dreams” is the gripping story of William Gates and Arthur Agee who follow their dream to become an NBA player through their inner-city struggles.  ESPN’s No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson is yet another documentary by Steve James that captivates an audience while also bringing to light a racial issue that made worldwide news in 1993. 

In the early 1990s, Allen Iverson was atop the high school sports platform.  He stood out on both the football field and basketball court for Bethel High School, leading them to state championships in each sport.  On February 14^th, 1993 however a terrifying incident changed Allen’s life and he may never have recovered.  Allen was involved in an altercation with white teenagers at a bowling alley in Hampton, Virginia where he allegedly hit a woman with a chair leaving her bleeding on the floor.  The incident created a rise in racial tension throughout the Virginia Peninsula, and even 17 years after the trial, there is still a racial divide that separates the area. 

I went to the Philadelphia premiere of the documentary at the Prince Music Theater Sunday night…

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We’re going to completely ignore the fact that he 76ers went out and won in Memphis on Saturday night and in the process completely blew any chance they had of sliding into the 3rd or 4th spot in the 2010 NBA Lottery. 

We’re not sure who we are more angry at, the Sixers scrubs for shooting the lights out (57% from the field and 53% on 3PAs)  or the Memphis Grizzlies for playing like dogs on Fan Appreciation Night in Memphis.  No matter who we blame, the fact is that the Sixers blew it in a big way by winning this meaningless game and thus remain in the seven spot for the 2010 Draft.  There is a chance they could get down to the 5th spot, but it’s remote.  So it seems safe to say we are looking at a 6-9 pick in the 2010 Draft for the Sixers.  To say we are simply disgusted with the team is an understatement.  They can’t do anything right.

So today instead of recapping the W by the Sixers that most likely killed the team’s chances of getting a Top 5 pick this summer, we’re going to look at a few items that we’re in the news over the weekend about two ex-Sixers and Philadelphia’s most disliked native son.

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Last night down at the Wachovia Center the 76ers (26-53) featuring Eddie Jordan’s “small lineup” staged a tremendous rally and nearly erased a 12-point half-time deficit before falling to the Milwaukee Bucks 95-90. 

If the 76ers would have shown up in the first half (only 36 points) or would have made some of the their free throws (9-20) or could have remotely put the defensive clamps on Carlos Delfino of the Bucks (23 points & 5 dimes) they may have been able to pull this one out.  That however would have been very unfortunate event for those of us who are stalking the Sixers NBA Lottery position, because when you look around the NBA scoreboard from last night, a lot of things went the Sixers way.

Here’s what we are talking about…

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