End of Chapter one
And so it happened, as many of you knew before the tale was told. The basketball conundrum – building a championship team with pieces you are forced to find or grow along the way.
For all the lauding, praise, and vast overstatement of the basketball minds, all of whom were very respected from the Philadelphia 76ers, the fate was the same as ll the other teams save one each year.
This Sixers team failed to answer the most fundamental of questions: From where will that elite player come? Despite the evidence that continues to form a nearly impenetrable argument that elite players come from an NBA draft, and that each “great” player arrives to a team with enough patience to retain them long enough to build a team around them.
The passion of the basketball mind is the opposite. In the “what have you done for me lately” realm of the wheelers and dealers, teams without enough patience are apt to trade away key pieces to the championship puzzle. The Golden State Warriors have just completed one of the finest seasons of any NBA team in history, and are firmly on their way to winning a second championship from the Cleveland Cavaliers in two consecutive years. The teams reserve small forward is none other thant Andre “Iggy” Iguodala, a player drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers at 9 in the 2004 NBA draft. Iggy remained with the Sixers throughout the period covered by chapter one. Until the end, where here was one of the key pieces in the desperate trade to bring Andrew Bynum to the Philadelphia 76ers.
And so, the team found itself with a bare cupboard, dashed hopes, and nobody to blame but themselves. But acknowledging the disease is 50% of its cure. It needed to be diagnosed by the most unsual of persons – a man from the Houston Rockets who knew a little bit about basketball analytics.
Next: Diagnose the Problem