There’s a school of thought in film criticism that a piece of cinema can be so bad, such a misfire on every possible level, that it can be understood as great.  The thinking, as I understand it, is that doing the complete opposite, in the most literal sense, of what every correct artistic impulse dictates demonstrates a genius-level ability to identify, intuitively or otherwise, the essential pivot-points in the machinery of cinema.  The director of such a film has created a sort of photonegative of greatness, which with a little imagination, can itself be appreciated as great.

Willie Green – the exquisitely, defiantly, relentlessly awful Willie Green– was, in his own way, just such a photonegative.  And now, mercifully, he’s gone.  And some part of me –a part of me lodged so deep in the recesses of my being that I can only access it when I listen to Depeche Mode – misses him.

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Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski reported it first and the 76ers have since confirmed that New Orleans has traded 6-9 veteran forward Darius Songaila and 6-10 rookie Craig Brackins to the 76ers for Willie Green and Jason Smith. 

Chris Paul must be jumping for joy over this blockbuster. 

From the 76ers side, we give a tip of the hat to Rod Thorn for unloading dead weight from the Sixers bench.  Somewhere former 76ers head coach Eddie Jordan just shed a tear for his man Willie. 

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Philadunkia nation, that’s not a misprint.  Former 76ers point man Andre Miller lit up the Dallas Mavericks for 52 points last night and led the Portland Trailblazers to a 114-112 win in Dallas.  Miller who missed his first shot of the night was 22 of 31 from the floor and 7 out of 8 from the charity stripe.  Nearly half (25 points) of Miller’s scoring out-burst came during the fourth quarter and overtime periods.  ‘Dre scored the Blazers last nine points in regulation including the game tying bucket, a floating hook shot, with 14 ticks left.

As we all remember, 76ers GM Ed Stefanski decided against resigning Miller in July 2009 and cited the fact that he didn’t want to commit the years and money Miller was looking for on a soon to be 33-year old point guard.  Stefanski also noted that the organization felt it was time to give Sixer combo-guard Louis Williams a chance to start for the team at the point.  The Blazers gave Miller a 3-year, $21 million deal in which the first two years are guaranteed.  For Portland that was money well spent as Miller is averaging 13 points and 5 dimes a night and has been key in directing a team filled with young talent. 

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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 upcoming 76ers opponents — features tonight’s opponent down at the Wachovia Center, our man Andre Miller  and his Portland TrailBlazers. 

Believe it or not, we expect the 76ers to win this game tonight.  Yes we know Vegas has installed the Sixers as a two point dog at home.  And yes we know that Portland (25-17) is a very talented team that is currently holding on to 5^th place in the brutally tough Western Conference.  And yes we can see that Portland presents serious match-up problems for our home team.  And yes we realize that the Blazers have already beaten the Lakers and Magic this month.  And of course we also remember that the Sixers are coming off arguably their worst effort of the season in Minnesota on Monday.  And yes we’re absolutely aware that Eddie Jordan is still our head coach.

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Yesterday Philadunkia participated in a conference call with Ed Stefanski for blogs dedicated to the 76ers. First let us say that we are impressed and grateful that Ed gave us the chance to speak with via the phone.  A large percentage of NBA teams still will not recognize and respect sports blogs for the great work they publish.  So we say, “Thank you” to Ed and Sixers head PR man Michael Preston for their time yesterday.

The call itself last a little over thirty minutes and when we went back and listened to the tape Stefanski told us a number of things that most Sixers fans already know like Andre Iguodala is “willing and able” to play some point, that he didn’t trade Andre Miller at the dead line last year because “we didn’t get anything we thought was even worth discussing”, that “Elton Brand is absolutely 100%” and that he “expects to make the playoffs” this coming season. 

Stefanski also dished out a fair amount of front office speak on the call which allowed him to circle some questions without really answering them.  However, when we read between the lines on some of his quotes, we found that Stefanski responded to a good number of the questions with responses that actually provided insight into the thoughts, ideas and direction of the Sixers brain trust.

Now we went into this call with one single purpose and that was to get the answer as to why the 76ers did not / have not added a veteran back-court player who can score the ball to the roster.  That has been a burning issue for us here at Philadunkia since Orlando threw us out of the 2009 NBA Playoffs.  So we directed most of our questions for Stefanski at that story angle.

 We pulled our story line quotes as well as some of the best questions from the other bloggers and posted them for you here today.

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