Bench warmers. No not the movie. We’re talking about the guys who barely played for the Sixers this season. In a (Sixer) sense (I’ll be using that pun often; sorry), grading them would be hard sense there’s not a lot to go on. Even as I wrote that last sentence, I’m sort of thinking I’m wasting my time here. But, after seeing a movie with the same title as this post in reference to the group of players that I’m grading, I realized my destiny and decided that writing this would be for the best. Starting with the most games played…
Tony Battie: Dear Lord. We saw quite a bit of Battie. Too much for me. Every time I saw him, I had wished Lavoy Allen was playing instead. What if Coach Collins felt Battie would be better on Garnett in the playoffs? Would there be a game 7? Nah, we’d be long gon’ fishin’ by then. Yeah there were some nights where it felt like a “Battie night”. He did his job though: defend and rebound. He’s the perfect 5th big man on a solid big man rotation. I’m sure he’s given good advice, the most recent form was him helping Andre Iguodala seal a playoff game at the FT line. I just wonder why Andre doesn’t use that special “technique” more often. So yeah, in accordance to expectations and performance, Battie had a solid season.
Season Grade: B
Sam Young: Even though he wasn’t with the team at the start of the season, he’s played more games than a few other players on the team. He came in a trade deadline deal. I always say that the Sixers basically traded Marreese Speights for Sam Young but they needed two deals to get it done. Whatever. Sam is like Battie in that he’s probably best used as a 5th wing player in a solid wing rotation. He was suppose to add much needed toughness to this team (that’s what people were saying. I wasn’t buying it). Young just wasn’t much of a factor when he stepped on the court. He shot 30% from the field and 64% from the FT line. He’s actually been okay on defense though he’s obviously no lock down player. I guess I’d be willing to keep him around.
Season Grade: C-
Craig Brackins: Don’t look so confused. Craig actually played the same amount of games as Sam Young. I was admittedly surprised he played that many games. Every time the Brackin was released, it was a blowout though. And, int he beginning of the season, there were plenty of those, so I guess it does make (Sixer) sense that he would play 14 games. Feels like 3 or 4 though. He spent time in the D-League too. I managed to watch like a couple of minutes before realizing I had better things to do in life like eating candy or listening to random songs on YouTube. In the end, Craig wasn’t any good and it’s been reported that the Sixers have declined their team option on him. He may not be back next season.
Season Grade: D
Andres Nocioni: Remember him? Yeah. In the beginning of last season, he was playing a fairly big role on the team. He eventually dropped off the face of the earth team rotation in favor of Jodie Meeks and Evan Turner. He started playing badly during that season and it carried over to this season. Like with Brackins, he mainly saw playing time during blowouts. He took bad shots, he played bad defense…well, I said the bad from last season carried over didn’t it. I don’t think Nocioni is that bad though and he may have been feeling a little uninspired after falling out of the rotation. He did start a game (I had to look that up). Alright well I’m done typing stuff hoping a positive attribute will pop into my mind before I’m done this “analysis”.
Season Grade: D-
Francisco Elson: In times of injury, the Sixers thought that the best way to survive was to bring in Elson for a couple of 10-day contracts. Okay fine. Um…he played 16 minutes and scored 2 points.
Okay you know what? For Elson and Xavier Silas I’m just not going to do any grades. Not enough games to work with here. So…yeah. Oh, for one thing, both Silas and Elson have connections to heroes. Elson looks like that Frozone guy from The Incredible’s and, at least for me, I called Silas the X-Man of the team. So there you go.
I do hope you enjoyed the grades of the players this season. Was I off? On point? Were you expecting an “F” grade? I’ve got a number of off-season posts just about ready to go. In the meantime, the NBA Finals starts on Tuesday. It should be pretty awesome.