A few weeks ago when the NBA Draft Lottery was held in New Jersey, the Philadelphia 76ers organization prayed for a miracle.  Of course, there prayers were answered and they were awarded with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2010 NBA Draft.

Tonight, the 76ers wisely selected the mature, silky smooth and do-it-all junior guard/forward Evan Turner out of The Ohio State University.  Some experts believe that Turner is too eerily similar to what the Sixers already encompass in starting shooting guard Andre Iguodala and that the two cannot co-exist together, but nothing could be further from the truth.  When Iguodala declared after his sophomore season from the University of Arizona (2004), he was labeled an athlete, was a complimentary role player for the Wildcats and did not possess the ball handling skills that Turner beholds in his repertoire.

Additionally, Turner’s resume is far more accomplished than Iguodala in these early stages of his career. Just this past season, Turner earned First Team All-American honors, Big Ten Player of the Year and the Big Ten Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.  Furthermore, he did all this as the “go-to” guy and has handled the pressure that came with it. Even though Turner missed numerous games with a broken vertebra in his back, he still managed to win the Associated Press, Naismith and Wooden awards for Player of the Year in college basketball.  In fact, Turner is widely considered to be the most NBA-ready prospect coming out of his draft class and should be an early favorite for rookie of the year.

Continue Reading

The 2010 NBA Draft is just hours away and if you have been following all of the mock drafts, online expert predictions and television analysis, it seems pretty obvious that the national sports media believes that the 76ers are locked in to taking Ohio State’s Evan Turner with the No. 2 pick in tonight’s Draft.

However, no one knows the Sixers better then our colleagues on the Philadelphia basketball scene and in the local sports media.  So with that in mind, we reached out to our contacts across the city and pulled together a sampling of opinions from Philly basketball minds on which prospect the 76ers will draft at No. 2 tonight as well as why Ed Stefanski and company will go in that direction.

Check out their thoughts after the jump.

Continue Reading

Recently there have been two online posts by reputable basketball writers in this town that have raised some red flags for us here in the Philadunkia offices over the possibility of the 76ers drafting Evan Turner.  Don’t get us wrong, we still think Turner is a great basketball talent, the best overall player available to the Sixers at the #2 spot and that he could have an immediate impact on the team.  However two pieces we have read in the last few days both of which have included quotes from NBA front office types have caused us to further review just how good of a fit Turner would be for the 76ers.   

The first article that caused us pause on the Turner front ran on “The Philly Post” and was written by local college basketball guru Michael Bradley.  The short and sweet of Bradley’s post was that if the Sixers draft Turner, Iguodala has to go as they can not play together.  The second story that made us reconsider the selection of Turner by the Sixers was put together by legendary basketball scribe Dick Jerardi for the Daily News.  That story included NBA player personnel people on the record about Turner and how he is not the prototypical NBA 2-guard, which in our opinion is what the Sixers desperately need to find in the 2010 Draft.     

Continue Reading

Over at CSNPhilly.com, Dei Lynam is killing it with her 2010 NBA Draft Coverage.  Another great video she posted over the last couple of days is this interview with Doug Collins about how the 76ers can get better defensively despite trading Sammy Dalembert.

Foxsports.com’s NBA scribe Jeff Goodman has the 76ers drafting Evan Turner.  The highly respected experts at draftexpress.com also say it will be Turner.  But more importantly, did the Sixers own website accidentally tip off the rest of the world to the franchise’s plans for draft night with this image?

Stephen A. Smith writes that the Sixers must draft Evan Turner as “When you’re the Sixers, you have no choice but to pick a player of Turner’s caliber…”  However, Smith flat out refutes the idea that Collins is running the Sixers player personnel decisions, something many sources inside the NBA rumor mill are saying is happening.

Continue Reading

With the 2nd pick in the first annual TrueHoop Network Mockdraft, the Philadelphia 76ers select…Evan Turner from Ohio State University.

Despite all the trade rumors and the idea that new head coach Doug Collins is allegedly infatuated with Georgia Tech big man Derrick Favors, we’re making the obvious choice and grabbing Turner at #2.  He’s arguably the best all-around basketball player in the draft, has a tremendous basketball IQ and fills an immediate need for the Sixers at 2-guard, something we have been praying would be addressed for two years now. 

Barring another big trade and assuming the Sixers also do the smart thing an actually draft Turner, in our opinion the Sixers first five on opening day 2010 will be Jrue Holiday (PG), Turner (SG), Andre Iguodala (SF), Thaddeus Young (PF) and Elton Brand (C).

The New Jersey Nets are now on the clock.

While the actual trading of Samuel Dalembert to the Sacramento Kings came as no surprise to anyone, the timing of the deal was one of the more shocking Sixers developments in recent memory.  The disgruntled Dalembert has been asking for a trade for over a year now and it was well known around the League that the Kings were in hot pursuit of Big Sammy at the 2010 NBA trade deadline, but could not get a deal done.  Even though the deal has a long history, it comes as a bit of a surprise that with just one week remaining before the 2010 NBA Draft that the Sixers would ship Dalembert to Sacramento in exchange for forward Andres Nocioni and center Spencer Hawes and thus greatly alter their roster.  Typically deals of the nature would take place on Draft night or just after the NBA Draft.

Coming off of his eighth season with the Sixers, Dalembert had one of his strongest years in a Sixer uniform last season.  Dalembert put up 22 double-doubles and had the best field goal percentage of his career at 54.5 percent.  From January 5^th to February 6^th, Dalembert recorded 10 or more rebounds in 16 of the 17 games played during that time.  This great stretch of play is made even more impressive when you remember that the run came as his native country of Haiti was hit with a devastating earthquake which killed over 230,000 people and left the country in ruins.  Dalembert played a large role in the recovery effort and was given the NBA’s J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award in April.

Continue Reading

New 76ers head coach Doug Collins has said that he wants to meet with forward Elton Brand to discuss his plans for Brand in 2010-11.  The good news os that Brand seems to be on the same page as he reportedly said recently that he should and will meet with Collins.  However this critical meeting of Sixers basketball minds will not take place until after the NBA Draft, which as we all know is on June 24th.  Doug’s visit with Brand is just the first stop in a series of critical meetings the new had coach will hold with key 76ers as he attempts to repair the damage done to this team’s psyche by the 2009-10 season.  Here at Philadunkia.com we have given the string of player visits Collins is about to embark on this summer the title of “Doug-A-Palooza” and we pray that the “tour” comes off without a hitch.

Again the first stop on the “Doug-A-Palooza” tour will be Los Angeles for a sit down with Elton Brand, who as we all know was especially battered by the Eddie Jordan era.  Until an official transcript from this meeting between Collins and Brand is made available, we thought it might be fun to take a crack a predicting how their initial conversation might go.  We’d like to stress that the following post is a fake transcript assembled by Philadunkia.com that attempts to forecast the content and flow of the highly anticipated conversation between new 76ers head coach Doug Collins and Elton Brand.  

Continue Reading

ESPN.com’s Chad Forde is reporting that the 76ers continue to shop Elton Brand’s contract as part of any trade involving the #2 pick.  He also recants his earlier prediction that the Sixers will draft Derrick Favors at #2.

With all the attention on the Draft and new head coach Doug Collins, JSams at Libertyballers.com takes a moment to look over the potential free agent moves the Sixers could make this summer.  Could Kyle Korver be headed back to Philly?  

SI.com’s Frank Hughes writes that while John Wall is the best player in the Draft, Evan Turner is the best fit for the Wizards.  If Washington selects Turner, that sure would put the 76ers in a curious spot on Draft night.

Brian over at depressedfan.com wants the Sixers to target sharp shooter JJ Redick with their MLE.

Continue Reading

The “Miracle on Lottery Night” as we like to call it significantly improved the 76ers position in the 2010 NBA Draft, so we excitedly had to change the title of our draft prospect preview series (formerly “With the 6th pick…”) and start looking at a whole different list of college kids.

We again reviewed a number of the well respected “Draft Expert” projections, this time with a giddy focus on the #2 spot and then created a list of prospects from which the Sixers will likely pick a player on Draft Night 2010.  That Sixers projection list includes heavy favorite Evan Turner (Ohio St.), big man DeMarcus Cousins (Kentucky) and forward Derrick Favors (Georgia Tech).  However there are also a couple “experts” who are predicting that the Sixers will make a trade on Draft night that includes the #2 pick and a player or two from the current roster.  So do not be surprised if the Sixers do something unusual on June 24^th. 

Now it would have been easy for us to profile the college players “experts” are saying will end up in a Sixers uniform simply via stats and analysis, but here at Philadunkia we go the extra mile for our readers.  Thus we worked the phones and asked several of these potential future Sixers to give us a few minutes so that you could get to know them up close and personal.

First up in our retooled series of draft prospect interviews now titled “With the 2^nd pick…” is 7-foot, 227 pound shot blocking machine Hassan Whiteside of Marshall. 

Continue Reading