The Sixerfan1976 Update Thread

[geiger]

Miller will be an unrestricted free agent and with his salary range, I seriously doubt we'll be able to do a sign and trade that nets us anything remotely close to what we could get for him at the deadline.

[sixerfan1976]

true but if you cant get anything that helps you next year for miller at the deadline then just hold him and lose him for nothing. I am aware we arent winning anything this year..but the front office sees a chance at winning the first round if we get up to the 5 seed.

[mhunt]

terrible news. we want a championship, not a 2nd round playoff exit. that kind of short term thinking is the reason the sixers have been mired in mediocrity for years.

[Mahorn at the 4]

terrible news. we want a championship, not a 2nd round playoff exit. that kind of short term thinking is the reason the sixers have been mired in mediocrity for years.

I couldn't agree more. There must be a market for Miller.

Sixerfan, any updates on the Miller to Portland scenario? Hot? cold?

[The Guilty Party]

terrible news. we want a championship, not a 2nd round playoff exit. that kind of short term thinking is the reason the sixers have been mired in mediocrity for years.

EXACTLY!!!! You are my new favorite poster because that is exactly right! The name of the game isn't to build a team to make it to the second round but to win a title. Let's say we get the 4th or 5th seed and beat the Atlanta Hawks 4-2 in the first round but then get swept by Cleveland or Orlando or Boston.... are we going to feel all that great going into next season with (most likely) no Miller and a questionable Elton Brand??

I've come to accept that we're not getting/going after Amare because in some aspects, it doesn't make sense. That said, this front office is really puzzling to me. I guess the best we can hope for is that our young guys get better, Brand gets healthier, and Andre Miller re-signs here. I can see two of those three things happening.

[The Guilty Party]

I'm also going to update the title of this thread since this has become this year's SF76 update thread.

[The Guilty Party]

By the way, SF76's most recent update not only means no Amare but no Hinrich which is the other name a lot of posters wanted to see here. Gotta love that new regime, huh???

[sixerfan1976]

the way hinrich is playing...do you all really want him?

i agree on the 2nd round not good enough deal...they thought they became elite when they got brand. So did I ....now we are looking at a reincarnation of last years team that was exciting down the stretch but we know the party ends a round or 2 into the dance. So this is all delaying the inevitable as to what this team does this year. I do like the bench of LouWill,Ivey,Evans and Speights tho. Gotta say I think the team is somewhat better than last year at this point......but not enough to compete with orlando,boston,cleveland etc.

I suspect action around the league will pick up after Sunday's All star game....probably some GM's chatting there as well.

[geiger]

Amare likely going to Chicago, Detroit or New York. Those all make the most sense and can get Phoenix approximate parameters of what they are looking for. Wouldn't be surprised to see something like Hinrich, Tyrus Thomas, Noah and possibly a pick for Amare and Dragic. Also wouldn't be shocked to see a salary dump - Amare, Barbosa, Richardson and Tucker for Wallace, Iverson, Affalo, and Johnson (and maybe a pick) as well as a deal with the Knicks - although that's less likely. There are probably a bunch of teams out West who could make a decent offer and I'm sure Cleveland will try hard, but Suns likely want to trade him to an Eastern Conference team and Cleveland probably doesn't have the young horses or attractive enough picks to make it worth if for Phoenix.

[Gsraider]

There are several names that I thought Philly would at least explore as it relates to Miller. It would seem like might at least explore guys like Hinrich or B. Davis because they work straight up in a trade, while giving the team a replacement at PG. A guy like M. Miller solves a long distance shooting problem for the team although opens another hole.

Anyway, I thought there would be a lot more chatter and consideration revolving around Miller and his uncertain situation going forward.

[bebopdeluxe]

sf76:

The way he played in the three years before a disasterous team meltdown for the Bulls last season, damn right I want Hinrich!

Better him than just letting Miller walk for nothing (or being forced to grossly overpay this summer).

This is TERRIBLE news.

Damn.

[sixerfan1976]

I want a trade fix too...but apparently not much chatter yet. Maybe it picks up over next 10 days.

I would take Baron Davis ....I am not sold on Hinrich yet tho. I want a shooter..but I guess the shooter needs to be able to play d cuz our two best shooters are on the bench.

[bebopdeluxe]

Which is preciscely why Hinrich works...he shoots better than 38% from 3 (over 41% one year), and he is a plus-defender who can guard the 1 and 2 (which is great when Lou is out there). Yeah - he had a crappy year last year, but he was far from alone on that team - it was a team-wide meltdown. I don't think you offset three solid years in a row with one Dr. Phil-level dysfunctional team year.

I would love it if we could get some inside scoop on what scouts and personnel people have seen on the tape as it relates to his game. If this guy could get back to the level he played for THREE STRAIGHT YEARS prior to '07-08, he is a great fit for this team.

[tk76]

Agree with general sentiment here.

I hate empty wins. Sounds like a few wins in the next week and they hold on to Miller because a "win now" strategy. I could buy that if Brand was healthy and the team looked like a possible contender... but that could not be farther from the truth.

So basically they will not get value for Miller becasue they are in the East? Because in the west this team is the 10 seed.

[geiger]

Hinrich does not shoot better than 38% from 3. He shoots .376 for his career, but that's off-set by one career season when he shot .415%. He shot 35% last season and is shooting .364% this season.

In fact, Hinrich had two fairly crappy years in the league, followed by two solid seasons, one of which was a career year, and now followed by one and a half crappy seasons. Taking his career year aside, he's barely a 40% FG shooter overall. His defense has slipped the last year and a half as well. In fact, there is a much higher likelihood than he's the guy we've seen his first two years and his last year and a half than the guy we saw in his career season two and a half years ago.

His career FG numbers are .386, .397, .418, .448 in his career season, .414 and .418 this year. People like to imagine that his shooting somehow fell off his norm, but in fact, outside his career season, which looks like an anomaly, his shooting has remained very consistent - it's merely the fact that his 3 point shooting declined slightly and that he began going to the line less. As his confidence eroded and the team got better players/shooters around him who've matured - Gordon and Deng, he's also been taking less shots.

Realistically, what you can expect from Hinrich is solid defense, 2.8 to 1 assist to turnover ration with about 5 to 6 assists a game, shooting in the 40% to 42% range, 3 point shooting in the 35 to 38% range, about 2 to 2.5 FT attempts a game, about 10 to 13 points. If they feel that a production of that kind is worth an average of $9 million a season for 3.5 more years, than he's worth trading for. Otherwise, not. What's unresonable to think is that on a good team, his production will somehow duplicate his career 2006-07 season - in particular on a team like the Sixers, where he would rarely be left open for 3's and long jumpers because of the absence of other top flight shooters around him.

[bebopdeluxe]

geiger:

Hinrich does not have to score 16 points a game. What he needs to do is 1) defend like crazy; 2) take care of the ball; and 3) hit enough 3-pointers to keep defenses honest.

Lou is shooting the 3 at a lusty 29% clip. I won't even go into Miller's 3-point shooting potential. If this team is going to play Andre Iguodala, Thaddeus Young and Elton Brand all at the same time, it is my opinion that the PG will need to be at least an average 3-point shooter. The current NBA average is around 35%, so I view Hinrich as an average-to-above-average 3 point shooter - which is a clear upgrade from what we have now.

This is obviously a moot point, as the Sixers - having their eyes on competing for the 4/5 seed - are going to hold onto Miller for the rest of the season.

Nice.

[geiger]

I'm not even sure the Bulls are intersted in trading Hinrich. It might be a smoke screen, but they seem more intent on keeping him and letting Gordon walk than they are on moving him. They seem to value his locker room presence and leadership quite a bit.

The question is whether a guy who plays above average, but not great defense, as he has for a year and a half, who has hesitated to shoot and who doesn't seem to drive anymore, is worth the risk considering the size and length of his contract.

I wouldn't be opposed to having him here so long as they think he can get better from a change of scenery. If he can play good perimeter defense and shoot 42% from the field and 37% from 3, get us 12 points and 6 assists, in a complimentary role, I'd probably still take the risk given his age and the fact that outside a freak injury this season, he's been very durable. The question is whether the Bulls want to move him to free up cap space and whether Sixers want to take the risk of adding another long term contract at this point for a somewhat limited player who likely will do little in terms of making them a better team than they are now and who might limit their future fiscal flexibility. I don't know the answer to those questions. Just pointing out that this is something they probably will think about long and hard.

[bebopdeluxe]

This is where I think you and I differ...you think that Hinrich does not move the needle, where I think that the Hinrich from '04-05 to '06-07 is a better fit for this team than Miller.

Whether he can get back to being that player is the question...

[geiger]

I think you mean 05-06. In 04-05, he shot under 40% from the field for a lottery team. In 05-06, he shot .418%, still a fairly poor percentage, but he went to the line over about 86 more times, shot a higher percentage from the line, and shot the 3 at a better accuracy.

That's the risk - they have 3.5 years versus 2 years and they have to decide which guy they are likely to get and whether he's worth his contract. That's presuming we could get him in the first place.

I'm just not sure I take the risk - would have to carefully look at the pluses and minuses. For example, if we move Miller for Hinrich, we also shut ourselves from using the full MLE next season unless we want to pay the luxury tax, although assuming the luxury will be around $72 million, we probably could still sign someone for the LLE after using our first round pick.

I don't know if Hinrich's contract off-sets his better fit, since he's not as good a player as Miller. I'm on the fence about it. Sometimes I think that Iggy can take even more of a role facilitating the offense and a healthy Brand could run the pick and roll better with Hinrich, and our defense would benefit from having another good on the ball defender who can keep guys in front of him without playing 3 feet off them, on other days I wonder whether we'd be getting the Hinrich of the last year and a half while paying him twice what his production value warrants.

[bebopdeluxe]

Fair point.

I am just so pi$$ed off at the thought of Miller walking for nothing at the end of the season that I am trying to think of ways to get something of value before the deadline. If Hinrich could recover the game he had a couple of years ago, I do think he would be a great fit...but the move would not be without it's risks, for sure.