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.