(condensed version!)
Alright, Philly have a fucking weird squad. And so it's fitting that they'll play the Princeton offense.
At point guard, they lost Dre Miller, and so they'll be starting Louis Williams (or maybe Jrue Holliday, down the line). This is a problem, off the bat. But, ideally, they shouldn't be relying too heavily on play from the point. So...alright. Let's move on. Iguodala at the 2, he's a damn solid player, who when he stays within himself can really be a great contributor. Not a star, but a guy that can fill up the statsheet, and really just help out in a variety of ways. Your classic somewhat skilled athletic dude, I guess. Thad Young's been pretty impressive his first two seasons, and he's a pretty efficient player for a young guy that's relied on to a greater extent than you'd sort of expect. I don't know if he'll improve a lot, but even if he doesn't, he'll give them solid minutes at the three. Kapono off the bench is pretty much the exact opposite of Young, by the way, and that's nice in a way. At 4, Elton Brand's sort of the question mark. It was often said that maybe they weren't hurt too badly by his absence last season, because it turned them into more of a running team. Well, without Miller, they'll need Brand to step up this season. Can he do it? Definitely, he's shown in that in the past. Will he? How the fuck should I know?
Oh, and Samuel Dalembert at the 5. Well, hopefully Speights ends up getting a lot of minutes/starting, as he's a pretty fucking intriguing player, who did very well in the minutes he got last season. Dalembert, on the other hand, is pretty fucking enraging, at times showing quite a bit of ability, but usually sort of just disappearing. And, again, I don't really know how that'll go this season, but unless Dalembert has the best season of his career (by a lot), Speights really ought to see a lot more time than he did last year.
There's not a whole lot of quality depth to this squad, which is definitely worrying. Brand's the supposed star, at least in theory, but unless you assume the absolute best (06ish Clipper Elton) from him, that's not really enough to put them over the top of the other high-mediocre squads in the East. So they'll be in there with Atlanta/Chicago/Washington/Detroit/whomever, and definitely ought to make the playoffs. From there, it pretty much all depends on how the young guys can do, and to what extent Elton Brand can get back to being Elton Brand.
For a hip hop act here, let's just go with DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince. Acus Parents Just Don't Understand. Oh, no, wait, it's because of the Philly thing. Right.
(I guess I could have gone Schooly D here, but then I would have had to come up with how it was actually like militant/gangsta Schooly D, and not "Gucci Time". But, you know, whatever)
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