Unless you have fallen “off the grid” in the last 48 hours, you are aware that Boston Celtics General Manager Danny Ainge listened to offers from a number of NBA teams for elite point guard Rajon Rondo.

It’s not official yet, but it is being reported that the front runner in these rumored talks, the Dallas Mavericks, have struck a deal for Rondo and willing send at least one future first-round pick; a 2nd round selection; Jameer Nelson and slowly developing power forward Brandan Wright to Beantown in exchange for #9.

Any way you slice it, Rondo leaving Boston is a good thing for the 76ers, and being traded out of the Atlantic Division and the Eastern Conference even, is a nice boost for the rebuilding process of the Sixers.

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Boston Celtics

105

FinalRecap | Box Score

87

Philadelphia 76ers

	Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, PF 26 MIN | 4-10 FG | 1-2 FT | 6 REB | 2 AST | 2 STL | 1 BLK | 4 TO | 9 PTS | -4Luc was Luc last night. Now go massage Joel’s foot.
	Nerlens Noel, PF 29 MIN | 9-12 FG | 1-1 FT | 8 REB | 4 AST | 3 STL | 2 BLK | 3 TO | 19 PTS | -2Put asisde the near double-double that Noel posted on 75% shooting. What impressed me the most last night was that #4 was aggressive on offense and looked for his shot.  Too many times early on this year Noel has caught the ball in decent position and has not even looked at the basket before passing the ball.  Hopefully ast night is the start of a new trend on offense for Noel.
	Robert Covington, SF 29 MIN | 4-15 FG | 3-3 FT | 6 REB | 2 AST | 2 STL | 1 BLK | 1 TO | 13 PTS | -3I thought covington missed on a lot of clean looks last night, but I did like that he kept firing away when the opportunity came to him.  Great shooters keep shooting even on bad nights
	Michael Carter-Williams, PG 29 MIN | 5-12 FG | 2-4 FT | 5 REB | 6 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 5 TO | 13 PTS | -4Yes MCW shot nearly 50% from the field and handed out 6 dimes, but your starting PG can not own a 1:1 assist to TO ratio (5 turnovers last night) if you are going to win in this League.  He als0 needs to stop shooting threes — period.
	Hollis Thompson, SG 21 MIN | 1-3 FG | 0-0 FT | 4 REB | 1 AST | 1 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 2 PTS | -6Can someone tell me how this clown continues to hold on to a spot in the first-five?

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This Saturday 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 upcoming 76ers’ games – features tonight’s opponent, the Memphis Grizzlies, who defeated the Charlotte Hornets last night; have won 3 straight; 7 of their last 10 games and are currently in first place in the Western Conference.

After the jump, I’ll look a Fo’ key items for tonight’s game.  Additionally, we’ll get a little more insight into this Memphis team the Sixers face tonight from our colleague Chip Crain at 3 Shades of Blue.com, as Chip will answer Fo’ questions on his Grizzlies from us here at Philadunkia.

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Philadelphia 76ers

79

FinalRecap | Box Score

95

Atlanta Hawks

	Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, PF 29 MIN | 5-9 FG | 0-1 FT | 2 REB | 0 AST | 5 STL | 1 BLK | 1 TO | 12 PTS | -20Luc recovered from a 1-4 start to post a decent game. He scored 7 points in the 2nd Q and had a tremendous block on Al Horford during that quarter.  Still, I don’t understand how this guy is getting 30 mins. a night. He’s an average NBA player and is not part of the long range plan for this team.  I’d rather see his minutes go to one of the young cats.
	Nerlens Noel, PF 34 MIN | 3-7 FG | 2-4 FT | 5 REB | 3 AST | 0 STL | 3 BLK | 2 TO | 8 PTS | -13I have only a couple notes for Noel last night. In the 2nd Q he rejected DeMarre Carroll ‘s 5-footer and he scored with a nice lefty lay-in during the early 3rd Q. What has become painfully obvious to me and was very apparent on several Hawks’ posessions last night, is that outside of blocking shots, #4 is struggling to adjust to the NBA game on the defensive end.
	Henry Sims, C 13 MIN | 0-3 FG | 1-2 FT | 4 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 1 TO | 1 PTS | -9Ewwwwwwwwww…Henry’s season low tick produced this quote from Brown, “We just went small ball. There is nothing to read into there.”
	Michael Carter-Williams, PG 38 MIN | 4-7 FG | 0-0 FT | 10 REB | 9 AST | 0 STL | 2 BLK | 9 TO | 8 PTS | -15Yes, MCW posted yet another near triple double, but he also turned teh ball over 9 times. NINE! This franchise will never succeed (at any level) when it is being run by a PG who is that careless with the rock.
	Hollis Thompson, SG 36 MIN | 3-7 FG | 1-1 FT | 5 REB | 4 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 8 PTS | -13Not a bad night from my least favorite 76er.

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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 a riding a hot streak right now having won 7 straight games, and 9 of their last 10.  Still, I like the 76ers chances of stealing a win tonight for reasons that I will discuss after the jump.

(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 David Menze at Soaring Down South, as David will answer Fo’ questions on his Hawks squad from us here at Philadunkia.

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In case you stepped away from the season of the “double tank” for the weekend, you should know that the 76ers have won 2 out of their last 3 games and now stand at .500 in the month of December.  We realize that both victories came against fellow NBA bottom dwellers Minnesota and Detroit and with a simply brutal schedule ahead of Brett Brown’s team this month, we don’t see these good times lasting past this week.

Still, today we’re going to look at three positive items we have seen over this recent four game stretch in which the Sixers picked up two wins; got beat by the defending champs in respectable fashion and suffered a highly competitive loss to the vastly superior OKC Thunder.

Believe or not we had a hard time limiting this post to just three items.

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Philadelphia 76ers

85

FinalRecap | Box Score

77

Minnesota Timberwolves

	Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, PF 28 MIN | 4-9 FG | 4-5 FT | 9 REB | 1 AST | 1 STL | 0 BLK | 1 TO | 12 PTS | +6Embiid’s mentor got another start tonight and 6 points in the 1st Q helped produce a near double-double. Still he missed a couple jumpers in the 4th that nearly cost the 76ers the game.
	Nerlens Noel, PF 25 MIN | 4-8 FG | 0-0 FT | 3 REB | 0 AST | 2 STL | 1 BLK | 1 TO | 8 PTS | -2How does an athletic, 7-foot big man only grab 3 boards against one of the worst teams in the League? However, he did execute nicely on that pick-n-roll alley oop with MCW in final minute of the game.
	Henry Sims, C 25 MIN | 4-8 FG | 2-3 FT | 6 REB | 1 AST | 1 STL | 0 BLK | 2 TO | 10 PTS | +5Sims was solid last night, but when he scored a quick 5 points in the 1st Q I thought he was in for a big night. He hit a key bucket in the late 4th Q, but other then that it was quiet night for #35.
	Michael Carter-Williams, PG 43 MIN | 9-20 FG | 2-7 FT | 9 REB | 9 AST | 3 STL | 0 BLK | 6 TO | 20 PTS | +14A near triple double for #1, who by the way is averaging a triple double over his last 3 games — 20; 10;10. Honestly it’s too bad his stroke is broken because last night he had some easy looks from three and just gave away points at the FT line.  If he owned even just a decent jump shot he would have put up 30 last night.
	Hollis Thompson, SG 30 MIN | 1-6 FG | 1-2 FT | 3 REB | 1 AST | 2 STL | 0 BLK | 2 TO | 3 PTS | -11Hey coach Brown…Are we done here yet?

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It’s time for another 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 Jeff McMenamin, Carey Smith, Michael Kaskey-Blomain and Tyler Cook will examine four key questions surrounding our winless, but developing 76ers.

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San Antonio Spurs

109

FinalRecap | Box Score

103

Philadelphia 76ers

	Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, PF 22 MIN | 3-10 FG | 0-0 FT | 1 REB | 3 AST | 3 STL | 0 BLK | 1 TO | 6 PTS | -6Other than the fact that Luc shot the ball entirely too much last night — including a 2-8 1st half — I only have one note on Embiid’s mentor and that was a nice assist he had in the 3rd Q.
	Brandon Davies, PF 19 MIN | 3-7 FG | 2-3 FT | 2 REB | 3 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 8 PTS | +3Outside of one ill-advised 3PA from the top of the arc, I thought Davies played solid basketball last night.  I still don’t want him on the roster next season, but last night he was tolerable.
	Henry Sims, C 25 MIN | 5-9 FG | 0-2 FT | 5 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 12 PTS | -10Sims played very good basketball last night, including a 3-ball in the early 3rd Q and another in the late 4th. The baseline, reverse lay-in he executed in the 4th Q was smooth and led to 7 points in the 4th Q.  However, when you get posterized by Marco Belinelli (who is 4 inches shoter than Sims) and end up in the #1 spot on SC’s Top 10 plays, I have to knock you down at least one grade
	Michael Carter-Williams, PG 35 MIN | 9-19 FG | 4-5 FT | 11 REB | 7 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 4 TO | 24 PTS | -11MCW started out the game by shooting 2-5 in the 1st Q, but a strong 2nd Q in which he scored 8 straight for the Sixers at one point helped produce a near triple double.
	Hollis Thompson, SG 29 MIN | 3-6 FG | 0-0 FT | 1 REB | 2 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 1 TO | 7 PTS | +5Obviously I am not a fan of #31, who started again last night, did absolutely zip in the 1st Q and scored his only bucket of the 1st half right before the intermission.  Still, he did score 5 points in the 4th Q to help make this game interesting and overall he shot the ball decent;y, so I’ll give him a passing grade.

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In business, there is a concept called Fitness Landscape.  The concept is derived from evolutionary theory and it is accepted and exercised widely in the business world.

Here how it goes:  Imagine a system that we want to improved performance from.  The system can be a biological species, a business system, or for the sake of our conversation an NBA team such as the 76ers.  This system is located on a plain or a landscape that measures its performance.  Any time the performance improves the system goes up to reach a peak.  Anytime the performance drops, the system will go down into a valley.

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