Philly's Answer
It’s January 31st in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On a trip to visit family in a nearby suburb, I’m standing in the Wachovia Center, my first live 76ers experience about to close.
Down two to the Nets with seconds left, Sixers guard Royal Ivey’s potential game winning three is blocked out of bounds with a fraction of a second still on the clock. With not enough time to get a shot off, head coach Tony DiLeo calls his last time-out to draw up a last-gasp alley-oop to Marreese Speights.
The pass is tipped away. The ball bounces harmlessly to the floor as the final buzzer sounds. The Nets celebrate their come from behind win. The Sixers are booed off the floor.
The boos, reigning down from every corner of the stadium, are warranted. Coming into the last period with a ten point advantage, the home squad had bricked their last 18 shots of the quarter before finally coughing up the lead for good in game’s final moments.
Elton Brand, who was in his fifth game back from a one month shoulder injury, looked particularly awful. Clearly not healthy, Brand looked slow and was anchored to the floor. He went 2-10 and would undergo season ending shoulder surgery just five days later.
Though their newly minted $80 million power forward was quickly becoming one of the worst contracts in the League, there was still reason to be excited in Philadelphia. After a slow start and the coaching change that accompanied it, the Sixers had won five of their last six to bring them to 23-22.
The only excitement that existed that night, however, was the prospect of booing the home team off the floor, and being Philly, the crowd obliged. It was the night's only moment of solidarity and it was loud. The half-empty arena had been deader than disco for 47 and a half minutes, utterly indifferent towards everything. The jeers came down and the Sixers shuffled off the floor.
Having decent knowledge of Philadelphia, I'm not shocked by the booing. Booing the home team, like TastyKakes, are staples of the region. I am shocked, however, by the obviousness of the Sixer's irrelevance. The fan base that once fervently rallied around their underdog Sixers and their adopted son , Allen Iverson, no longer embraced professional basketball.
Maybe the championship success of the Phillies had exposed the Sixers for being characterless and mediocre. Or perhaps fans were worn out from enduring the many ups and downs with Iverson over the years and simply lacked the energy to care anymore. Whatever the reason, that night opened my eyes to the very real problems surrounding Sixers basketball, both on and off the court.
This season, the Sixers' problems are even more pronounced. Losers of their last eight, the team sits at 5-14. Brand, still struggling to live up to his mammoth contract, comes off the bench. Lou Williams and Speights, arguably the two lone bright spots this season, are out with extended injuries. And as the Sixers struggle to find success in the win column, ownership is struggling with an attendance average that is second worst in the league.
With the season headed on a direct course for disaster, the Sixers needed an answer. Actually, they just needed the same Answer from before.
In the end, all they needed was each other. Iverson, 34 and in the cold, is coming back home, where he will be re-embraced as the city's favorite son. It's a seemingly sappy dénouement to a story that had turned tragic for both parties.
At the press conference yesterday, GM Ed Stefanski set the official party-line: "We made a basketball decision here,” he said. “If it means that we start playing better basketball and bring fans in, that's great. But in order to sustain any kind of attendance in the building, you've got to win basketball games."
Though that may be management's public stance, fundamentally, it had very little to do with basketball. In fact, it also had very little to do with sentiment.
The truth is, with or without Iverson, the Sixers won't be winning many games this season, making ideal methods for boosting attendance virtually impossible.
And that’s where the desperation of this economic decision becomes evident. With the season basically lost and the threat of substantial economic loss looming, the Sixers need somebody to sell tickets and Iverson conveniently fits the bill: He’s available, he’s cheap, he fills an immediate need on the roster and he’s a force in the Philly market. Goals that once included installing a new offense and the Playoffs, now revolve around good business. With Iverson on board, the Sixers -- win or lose -- are relevant again, and that's good enough considering everything else.
Iverson, desperate to get back into the League, gets what he wants as well -- a starting role and a second chance to write the final chapter of his career the way he wants in the city that he loves. As Eddie Jordan tells it, it was an easy decision: “I told him I would like for him to start, and that’s where it sort of ended. And he was really like a kid at Christmas.”
It was really that simple. All romanticism aside, this is a mutually beneficial deal where everyone gets what they want. And if this is still too much for your heart-strings to handle, just remember – if Lou Williams doesn’t break his jaw, Iverson remains retired. This works because of Iverson's past with the city, but this move was made because the circumstances demanded it. This would not have happened if economic turmoil and injuries didn’t flawlessly combine together to create a need.
Yet, desperate and circumstantial as it is, it’s also a conveniently perfect match -- one of those rare situations where the interests of two self-seekers fit nicely together to form a mutually comfortable relationship. As he requires, Iverson will get to start and jack up shots, the Sixers organization will get a much needed attendance boost, and maybe, if the Wizards and Raptors continue to spiral down the standings, they’ll sneak into the Playoffs with a decent stretch.
So then, you ask, why the non-guaranteed contract? These days with Iverson, you can never be too careful, I suppose, but even my worst inner cynic cannot imagine Iverson being released before the end of the season, even if some unforeseen locker room resentment from the few players who played alongside Iverson three years ago surfaces. Letting Iverson go would be a catastrophic, irreparable PR nightmare that would further alienate the Sixers in Philadelphia, making this whole thing a wasted effort.
Other than some potential locker room resentment from any combination of Andre Iguodala or Lou Williams (that’s why this is a non-guaranteed deal), the guys who have failed to make the Sixers relevant on their own, this will last until the end of the season, at which point Iverson and the Sixers will go their separate ways again. Hopefully by then, content with himself, Iverson will have finally found his peace.
And when Iverson is gone and the dust has settled in Philly, the Sixers will be right where they were two weeks ago: Irrelevant and indistinguishable, stuck with the same core that led them back to Iverson. But, that's next year's problem. This year already has its Answer.
Perhaps it lacks the certain romanticism that one would like to expect, but the A.I.-Philly reunion is a chapter still worth reading. And when Iverson puts pen to paper on Monday, you can be sure that this Iverson fan will be gobbling up every bit.
Jon Pastuszek can be reached at jon@hoopsdaily.com
