Panic Set In
Following two failed attempts to win an NBA championship, the team began to panic. Believing that the team was moments fro a return, the team abandoned the slow and steady pace of restocking the roster with NBA draft picks – instead relying upon NBA trades. When you are a very good team, trades tend to equalize the league, depleting excellent teams of their excellence, while lifting bad teams up from their woes.
In August 2002, the Philadelphia 76er decided that the team required depth, and abandoned the center who helped the team make the NBA championship in 2001 by trading Dikembe Mutombo to the New Jersey Nets in exchange for center Todd MacCulloch and forward Keith Van Horn. In the deal, the 76ers distanced themselves from dominant center play and focused on an smaller ball version which relied on Iverson and Van Horn for offense.
The strategy seemed to work, as the team survived the first round by defeating the New Orleans Pelicans 4 to 2. But in the next round, the Sixers faced a determined Detroit Pistons team which defeated them 4 to 2.
To bolster the team even further, the team added Glenn Robinson at small forward. Once more, Iverson was injured, limiting his play to just 48 of the 82 games played that year. Robinson played just 42 games for the Sixers. But “the infection” had set in. Players acquired through trade or signed via free agency have a very short attention span. In four words: “Win! Or I’m Gone!”
Depleted by injuries, weakened by squandering their all too few draft picks, the team began the oscillation pattern that is as much a tell tale sign of a dying NBA franchise as the red giant sun is a sign that a star is on its death march.
Next: Desperate Times, Foolish Measures