The Best Move Was No Move At All

They forebore to break the chain

Which bound the dusky tribe,

Checked by the owners' fierce disdain,

Lured by "Union" as the bribe.

Destiny sat by, and said,

"Pang for pang your seed shall pay,

Hide in false peace your coward head,

I bring round the harvest-day.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Another trade deadline has come and gone which means three or four more teams have on-paper championships, and three or four more fan bases face years of misery.  All the while, the Sixers are content with the roster they had before 3 o'clock this afternoon.  A brief conversation with Houston lead to Shane Battier whispers, but ultimately, the trade was never a reality.  So as fans of the Sixers, we are left to wonder what this means in regards to ownership's mindset.

Lots of big names moved in the past couple of days: Carmelo Anthony, Deron Williams, Gerald Wallace, Baron Davis, Kendrick Perkins.  Obviously the Carmelo to the Knicks trade was by far the biggest.  It created yet another super-team with him, Amar'e, and the surprisingly under-appreciated Chauncey Billups.  There is this theme of having two superstars and a complimentary third player in order to compete for a championship that has swept over the Association over the past couple of years.  The Lakers did it with Kobe, Gasol, and Artest/Odom.  The Celtics did it before them with Pierce, Garnett, and Allen/Rondo.  There is another team in Florida who did it recently, though I can't quite place them right now.....  We'll never know for sure whether Emerson was talking about the situations in South Beach or New York when he wrote those lines, but I'm going to assume he could see the future.

The Sixers have decided not to go that route this season, though there is a wealth of young talent and potential that could have baited many GM's.  In a way, it's sad to see another year of Sixers basketball without a superstar, but on the other hand there wasn't a massive salary dump signaling the forfeiture of the season either.  What we have is a team of role players playing satisfactory basketball.  This team WILL make the playoffs this year.  Heck, they may even win a round if the stars align.  They WON'T win a championship with the team currently assembled, though.  I think Thorn, Stefanski, and Collins want to see how this group handles the playoff push and matures in a series against one of the superpowers before deciding what to do.  There are some majors needs that weren't addressed today, but the way this team is playing together, maybe adding a big name would have been dangerous or disruptive.

There are two schools of thought for this team.  The first is to dump salaries like Iguodala or Brand, and hope to get serviceable talent in return until a new superstar is found in the draft.  The other is to add an established center like Chris Kaman, Marcin Gortat, or for the dreamers out there, Dwight Howard.  In ignoring both of those philosophies, the Sixers organization have created more time to evaluate talent, and figure out if this team is really on the way up.  There will still be a draft this year, with underrated talent coming out no less, for the team to attempt to plug some holes.  Holliday is only getting better, and Iggy has turned into an unselfish player.  The superstar will come, eventually, but until then why mess with a good thing?  Let New York, Miami, Boston, and LA battle it out for a couple years until their stars get too old to be really effective anymore.  In the meantime this team must compete with what they have, and then make an intelligent decision later.  

Sports Need More Balls

Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette said something interesting the other day.  He said it's "all or nothing" this year for the Flyers.  It's not interesting in a way that it is out of line or irrelevant to the current team, but interesting because he said what every fan wants every coach to say.  There is a disease spreading in sports causing the best teams to be the most obnoxiously humble or quiet.  Lavvy allowed fans a glimpse at the state of mind of this Flyers team that was within a few games of drinking from the Cup.  It is a rare and refreshing thing in sports for a player or coach to make a statement even as innocent as that one.

There have been much more daring and bold statements in the past: Joe Namath guaranteeing a Super Bowl victory, Babe Ruth allegedly pointing over the outfield wall, Matt Hasselbeck and his "we want the ball and we're gonna score!".  Those statements can either be glorifying or damning (in Hasselbeck's case), but they highlight a personality characteristic of athletes that we hate to love.  I'm talkin' 'bout hubris, baby. It is the perfect time of year to bring this up, as it is the 4th anniversary of the Team To Beat incident, 1.23.07.  That day, Jimmy Rollins fired up the city, his team, and everyone else in the NL East.  He didn't do it inappropriately, or without grounds, yet it consumed the national baseball media's attention.  The reason is that sport is entertainment and the players are the entertainers.

I'm leaning towards the side of loving the hubris that professional athletes display sometimes.  Don't get me wrong though, as there is nothing better than the best pitcher in baseball being the hardest working and the least flamboyant.  But Rickey Henderson's stolen base record speech is one of the best, and most self-aggrandizing, of all time and I can't get enough.  There is some degree of finesse involved in flashing the proverbial peacock feathers in sports, and some guys get it.  Tyson didn't quite get it.  Ali did.  Rex Ryan doesn't quite get it.  Buddy did.  LeBron DEFINITELY doesn't get it.  Kobe's gotten it 5 times.  If you aren't getting the pattern, you have to be good and bold, but more the former than the latter.  Once the hubris starts affecting team play, or alienates a certain fan base, or involves any monetary negotiations it becomes distracting and disgusting.  When Jimmy Rollins said that the Philles were the team to beat, he maybe only half believed it at the time, but (and this is rather important) felt that he and his teammates were capable of playing like it.  Fast forward to this year and Brad Lidge saying the same thing and it starts to get old.  If he were Mariano, it would mean something.  It meant something when Rollins said it.

Try and think about a sports world where every player is modest and tells the media that the other team is better.  Think about a sports world where Bill Belichick runs each press conference with his dry pretentiousness.  People may say that celebrations in the endzone are immature and unnecessary, and I agree that they are when they are scripted, but I would not scorn Desean Jackson one bit for falling backwards into the endzone.  These players and coaches are paid endless amounts of money because they are the best in the world, so why not let them get into one another's head?

Lavvy wasn't overstepping his boundaries by saying what he said, and it really wasn't much of a guarantee.  It was the oft unspoken truth about maybe the best team in the NHL.  Aiming for anything less than a championship is unacceptable of any organization or player.  Guaranteeing one when you are clearly not capable of doing so is obnoxious.  I'd like to see more players and coaches be vocal about the abilities and goals of the team.  I think it is good for entertainment's sake, and most importantly for competition's sake.

So please, in the comments below, leave your best example of hubris going either exceptionally well, or horribly wrong.  I'll start it off with Beltran's pathetic attempt to steal the Phillies' thunder in 2008 with his verbal plagiarism of Jimmy Rollins.

Stuff On My Mind, Vol. III

Amidst all the excitement of last year's Stanley Cup series, it was clear that Chicago was a talented and highly developed team.  The Flyers were a bunch of roughnecks, eking out ugly wins throughout the whole season and most notably the post season (see: entire Boston series).  Philadelphia played a style of hockey last season that was contrary to everything this blog believes in.  If you aren't going to win it all, at least look good while you fail.  But I digress.  Chicago had crisp passes, executed plays perfectly, and played at an all around higher skill level.  Fast forward to one year later and it seems as if the Stanley Cup loss was not in vain.  Whether it was a new approach by Coach Laviolette to get his guys playing better, or the players themselves seeing how it was that Chicago made them look inferior, the Flyers are playing with a flair that they have never been known for before now.  Heck, they are lovingly called the "Broad Street Bullies" in homage to the brutal teams of Flyers past.

Leading the league in team scoring is as much an indictment on the conference and divisional opponents as it is an example of the Flyers' top tier offense.  Granted, many times a year they get to face the Devils and the Islanders, but they are truly a gifted team.  Four of the top ten points leaders in the Eastern Conference are Flyers; Giroux(47), Carter(44), Richards(47) and Briere(45).  Those numbers aren't the flashy 68 that points leader Steven Stamkos currently has, but it shows a balanced team.  Pronger has spent a little time on the injured list, but Braydon Coburn and Matt Carle have been solid on defense, helping rookie Goalie Sergei Bobrovsky and career journeyman Brian Boucher keep the Flyers in the better defense half of the league.

The combination of the pure will to win that this squad had last year and the new found technical abilities, the Flyers are poised for a repeat trip to the Stanley Cup.  Vancouver looks to be the favorite from the Western Conference, a team that beat the Flyers in December 6-2 and is tied with them at the top of the team scoring list.  Lavvy's team is 5-4-3 against the West this year, and it looks like the only East team that will pose a problem is the instate rival Penguins.  This team is built for a second trip to the Cup, and has the skill and will to win it this time around.  Also, Rick DiPietro got knocked the F**K out.

Let's see what else is floating around in the deep, empty crevices of my brain.

1.  Andy Reid has officially lost control.  The state of the Eagles under Joe Banner's watch is quickly deteriorating.  Reid has moved Offensive Line Coach Juan Castillo to Defensive Coordinator.  It's a great move, especially with Castillo's extensive DC experience at Kingsville High School in '86 - '89.  It's a move that shows desperation, and Reid's lack of trust with an outside point of view.  Maybe they have a ace up the sleeve, but right now it looks like there is no plan of action heading into next year.  Yahoo reported that maybe the Eagles would consider a Tampa 2 defense with DC Monte Kiffin in the college ranks.  I understand that college head coaches don't last after making the transition to the NFL, but could it possibly be the same for coordinators?  Head coaches manage players, coordinators call plays.  Banner and Reid need too at least dabble in the NCAA to look for candidates before they play desperation off as inspiration.

2.  The NFL Pro Bowl is officially the most meaningless sporting event in history.  There is not one ounce of competitive spirit or effort put into the game.  It has zero affect on the season, unlike baseball.  There is nothing spectacular that the players can do out of the ordinary, unlike basketball.  They don't even add an interesting twist by picking captains and selecting teams like gym-class dodgeball, like hockey this year.  Half of the players don't want to play, and the other half don't even show up.  Here's my unoriginal solution: a skills competition.  It would automatically boost viewer-ship and encourage players to show up.  The worst part about the pointless game is that it was scheduled the week before the, the midpoint of a gap between two important games that is already too long.  The current format is not working and until it changes, I will continue my Superbowl streak of not knowing what a Pro Bowl looks like.

3.  I'm surprisingly excited about the talent pool in college basketball this year.  There are no John Walls or Derrick Roses or Kevin Durants, but there is a deep lineup of players that could join an NBA team and contribute in a meaningful way.  It's encouraging for an overachieving Sixers team, that could play its way out of a lottery pick, that there may still be worthwhile picks at the 10-20 slots.  Some of my favorites:
Kenneth Faried (Morehead St.) - Rebounds like Reggie Evans, but can actually score.
Trevor Mbakwe (Minnesota) - High percentage shooter/rebounder.  Arrest really not as bad as it seems.
Perry Jones (Baylor) - Tall freshman with a lot of potential to be a paint presence.
Jordan Hamilton (Texas) - Purely a pipe dream on this one, but would be nice if we could land him.
Derrick Williams (Arizona) - Ditto

Until next time!