A new season brings
new faces to the 76ers

Off the Dribble
By Ryan Smith

It’s usually this time of year when, as NBA training camps open, I begin to prognosticate.
But this year is different.
Also different is this year’s first installment of Off the Dribble.
You see, it’s too early to make predictions.
The first order of business is clearing things up for those fans who have been busy investing all of their sports-allotted time watching the National League East division champion Phillies, who were swiftly eliminated from the postseason last weekend. With a summer of baseball fun at its end, and a football team not offering much hope, fans will turn to the Comcast indoor-sports empire — the Flyers and Sixers — for any chance at postseason redemption.
So with all that has transpired in Sixerland over the past year, we at Off the Dribble feel that it wouldn’t be fair to offer any insight to where this year’s team is heading — we’ll save that for the next column — before introducing you to the 2007-08 Sixers squad.
It’s a team made up of some players you’ll recognize, but many more that may make you ask yourself, "Do I know that guy?"
Let’s begin with the guys we all should be familiar with by now.
Swingman Andre Iguodala returns as the team’s starting small forward and best player. (He’ll also play a fair share of minutes at shooting guard.)
Last season, his third in the NBA, Iguodala led the Sixers in scoring with 18.2 points per game, while also dishing out 5.2 assists.
Iguodala is expected to blossom even more this season, since much of his success came after the acquisition of veteran point guard Andre Miller in the Allen Iverson trade.
And in case you stopped paying attention last year after Iverson’s departure, the Sixers acquired a stellar point guard in Miller.
He led the team in assists, averaging nearly eight per game, but his leadership skills and his impact on the team’s young players are what kept GM Billy King from dealing the top-flight point — a hot commodity — at last year’s trade deadline.
Starting alongside Miller in the backcourt, expect to see the re-emergence of shooting guard Willie Green, who enters his fifth season.
After returning from a career-threatening injury last season, Green is another player who blossomed in Iverson’s absence. The starting shooting-guard spot will be his to lose.
Expect third-year player Louis Williams to make a run for the spot, although at 6-feet-2, Williams may be more suited to play point, where he will also see minutes.
Starting at center is another familiar face, veteran Samuel Dalembert.
Last season, Dalembert finally began to resemble the player that King hoped we’d see when he signed the 6-foot-11 Seton Hall product to a gargantuan contract before the 2005-06 season.
But veteran sharpshooter Kyle Korver, who will be coach Maurice Cheeks’ go-to-guy off of the bench, is where the familiarity ends.
The team will have a new starting power forward in 27-year-old Reggie Evans, acquired in a trade this offseason.
Evans, who has flourished as a role player in the past, averaged seven rebounds in just 17 minutes per game last season for the Denver Nuggets.
Evans will add some much-needed rebounding and toughness down low, which will have a domino effect on his frontcourt mates Damlembert and Iguodala.
Centers Calvin Booth, signed as a free agent, and Jason Smith, a second-round draft pick, are two more new faces who will make the Sixers a much bigger, tougher team on the inside.
Expect second-year forward Rodney Carney to get a fair amount of playing time, but he will have competition from yet another new face.
First-round pick Thaddeus Young, who plays the same small forward/shooting guard positions as Carney, is expected to step right in and battle for minutes.
There are a handful of other new players who will vie for the final spots on the team’s 12-man roster, including rookies Derrick Byars, Ricky Sanchez and Herbert Hill.
If they can unseat veterans like Kevin Ollie and Shavlik Randolph, it may be impossible to watch the Sixers’ early-season games without a program on your lap. ••