Iverson: Shortsighted at best

The Sixers are last in the league in attendance filling a measely 58% of the seats in the building, and that's with numerous ticket promotions practically giving away seats. Interest in a team is at a seemingly all-time low. With our upcoming 1 hour Sixers radio show, I think we'll have talked more about the Sixers during a normal week (RE: non-Iverson) than 610WIP and 97.5 ESPN combined. The future doesn't look any more promising, with mounting injuries and a 5 game (and running) losing streak.

In the face of such adversity, our executives need to keep their focus on the long term goal of this (and any) organization: winning a championship. At best signing Allen Iverson is shortsighted. At worst it's detrimental to this goal.

Limited (basketball) rewards

Any thought of Iverson transforming this collection of talent into a serious contender is vastly over-stating what he has left on the basketball court, and possibly the effect he ever had. Allen Iverson is not going to fix this teams defensive issues, which the Sixers are currently ranked 28th out of 30 teams in Defensive Rating and 27th out of 30 in terms of opponents eFG%. In fact, if he starts over Jrue Holiday, he'll make them worse. He's also not going to fix the teams defensive rebounding problem, which again has the Sixers in the bottom third in the league. If this signing "works" on the basketball court he might sneak them into the 37 win range and let them play another quick series against the Orlando Magic. And that's if everything goes right.

Short term attendance boost

The signing of Iverson would likely lead to a boost in attendance, but that boost will be short lived. As was shown in the twilight of Iversons' first 76ers' stint he alone is not enough to pack the Wachovia Center. As the Sixers win total dipped, so did Attendance. In the 2005-2006 season the Sixers went from 10th in the league in attendance to 21st, then to 23rd in the league in 2006-2007, the season Iverson was dealt.

Simply making the playoffs and losing in the first round is unlikely to drastically change this teams long term attendance prospect. After going .500 last year and heading back to Philadelphia tied 1-1 with the Orlando Magic, the Sixers drew a meager 16,000 fans for Game 3 at home. After stunning the Magic in Game 3 to take a 2-1 lead? 16,000 again. That's only 80% capacity, which would put the Sixers at 23rd in the league if they averaged that on a daily basis in the regular season. FOR A PLAYOFF GAME.

A short-term sideshow isn't likely to increase attendance long term. It didn't last time Iverson was here. Making the playoffs to be first round playoff fodder for legitimate contenders likely isn't going to draw the fans in droves either, as last years playoff "run" showed. If you want to fix the attendance problem you need to make this team into a legitimate long term contender. You have a much better chance to do that by developing the talent you already have and by increasing your flexibility to make future moves. Signing Allen Iverson does neither. He won't be here in three years when most of this team reaches its prime and he won't be able to will this team to contention in the short-term.

Stunting player development

If the Sixers were the Celtics or the Magic, a team with legitimate title talent and possibly one piece away, I could understand the thought, and even then it wouldn't be a slam dunk. But that does not describe the Sixers at all, which means the potential gain the Sixers can receive (outside of fiscal gain) is limited. So is it worth the damage?

Outside of the obvious players this could stunt the development of (Jrue Holiday and Louis Williams, when he gets back), this could also take touches and scoring opportunities away from Thaddeus Young and Marreese Speights, two developing scorers critical to the long-term success of the team.

It's debatable how many minutes is too many for the young Jrue Holiday, but if he's able to play through his mistakes, knowing he has minutes available to him every night, that can speed up his development quite a bit. Jrue's going to make mistakes, but his talent (on both ends of the court) is obvious, and each and every night for him is a learning experience. I could understand relegating him to 12th man role if the Sixers were contenders, but doing so for the sole reason to sell tickets is a huge set-back for this team. As would taking touches away from Young and Williams be.

Lineup Craziness

Part of what's flying under the radar from this mornings revelation is the craziness that has reportedly been coming From Eddie Jordan:

Team sources confirmed on Friday that Iverson would be a starter because Jordan had planned on starting Williams with rookie Jrue Holiday anyway, just to put some excitement and more ball-handlers into his Princeton-style offense. So even once Williams returns from injury, he'd be in the starting lineup with Iverson.

If that doesn't prove that Eddie Jordan is merely playing lip service to defense (or, perhaps even scarier, has no clue about defense), I don't know what else can. Iverson and Williams starting in the backcourt, with Thaddeus Young at the 4 is so poor defensively and on the glass it's almost laughable. If that's what the head coach is thinking this team is in some serious long term trouble. Opposing guards will be penetrating at will, our problems defending the three will only get worse, and we'll get killed on a nightly basis on the glass. But we'll be more exciting!

The thought of moving Thaddeus Young back to the PF spot to accommodate this change also, in my mind, is another reason this move could stunt the long term development of one of this teams core players. It has become clear that Young is not a long term solution at power forward and asking him to change his position (and hence his role) yet again only delays the development of the 21 year olds future at his true position, Small Forward.

Short term gain not worth long term penalty

"Eddie needs a playmaker," another source said. "He needs an identity. Something to create some excitement."

...

"But let's face it: We're very, very boring right now," a team source said. "We have absolutely nothing to lose by bringing Iverson back. Nothing at all."

There you have it. If this does come to fruition, this is a purely financial decision made to generate excitement. But it smacks of a move made out of desperation, moves which rarely turn out well. This does nothing to enhance the long term success of the team, perhaps even greatly stunts the teams development, and will not fix the Sixers attendance problems long term. That can only be fixed by acquiring and developing talent that can work together as a cohesive group. If the Sixers brass thinks this is a good for the team long term I question their ability to lead the Sixers to that point.

This might generate a short-term boost in excitement, but it's much more likely to stunt the development of core young players on the team, and has little chance of bringing legitimate success on the basketball court. Generating a circus atmosphere should not be the goal of the organization, but it seems they are likely to do so in order to increase the bottom line. Let's hope Ed Stefanski has the vision and wherewithal to not succumb to that temptation.