A month into the NBA season, the Hornets looked like a surefire lottery team, with coach Byron Scott getting fired after a 3-6 start, off-season acquisition Emeka Okafor putting up underwhelming numbers, and franchise PG Chris Paul missing a month due to injury. But somewhat against the odds, the team weathered Paul's absence, started to gel under interim coach Jeff Bower, and has started to work Okafor into the flow a little. Now once again fully healthy, the Hornets have won six straight games to sit at 19-16, a mere half-game out of the playoffs in the ultra-competitive Western Conference. A lesson to be learned--no matter what the outlook otherwise, no team with CP3 on its roster can ever be counted out completely.
Meanwhile, the Sixers' hotness is of a much less sizzling variety, but the team should get some credit for a fairly convincing win in Detroit on Saturday. Though the team flirted with the idea of blowing a third-straight huge lead in the second half, the Liberty Ballers ultimately decided no, let's actually win this one, and held on for a 104-94 victory. The team's shooting was sparkling (57% from the field, 67% from deep), and its rebounding rock-solid, as the Sixers out-boarded the Pistons 40-34, compared to the outright embarrassing 96-71 combined advantage Detroit claimed in their first two games.
Allen Iverson is listed as a gametime decision tonight after missing the Detroit game with further knee troubles, but I want to talk about a couple other Sixers instead. First, I wonder if it's time to move Thaddeus Young back to the bench. I love Thad, but his play this season has been cringe-inducingly erratic. Look at his numbers in the four 2010 games he's played so far: 11 points, 7 rebounds and 3 TOs a game on 35% shooting from the field, 65% from the line and 0% from deep on five attempts. You like the rebounding numbers--which he certainly should be getting while playing at power forward--but everything else is pretty bad. It's not just that he's been a little off, either, but rather downright sloppy at times--I counted at least three layups that Thad blew on Saturday, and considering that his ability to finish on the break is one of his main assets to the team, you really hate seeing him rim out the gimmes.
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Meanwhile, Elton Brand continues to toil away on the bench, and is starting to make a pretty convincing case that he deserve the starter's minutes over Young. Elton scored 25 on 10-16 shooting against the Pistons, the fourth time he's scored 20+ off the bench. His rebounding isn't quite where you'd like it to be, and he can still be a mess on defense, but when you look at his Per 36 Minutes numbers, they're starting to look more and more like where he was at his LA peak. Maybe bringing Brand off the bench for a little while while he got his sea legs back was a good idea, and running the small back court with 'Dre at the three is looking like the way to go moving forward, but with Thad struggling the way he is (officially crossing the threshold between "promising" and "frustrating"), I think it's time to give EB another chance to earn that $80 mil in the proper fashion.
Speaking of threshold-crossing, credit must be given to Samuel Dalember for coming back to "frustrating" after a good season-plus of "downright unplayable." Philly.com's Bob Cooney recently wrote an article entitled "Face It: Sixers Need Dalembert," and as much as it kills me to admit it, he might have a point. It's unlikely that Sammy D's contract will ever seem reasonable, but this last week or so, he's at least demonstrated why at the time it might not have been completely unthinkable. Since the New Year, he's averaged 13 and 11, with two and a half blocks on 72% shooting. It won't last--in fact, you could argue that with the over-confidence this hot streak will inevitably give him, it'll ultimately be a negative for the team--but it is a decent reminder that if we ever got a coach who actually instructed Sammy in no uncertain terms to do nothing but patrol the lane, box out, and look for easy dunks off pick-and-rolls, alley-oops and offensive rebounds, he might actually be something resembling a legitimate asset.
7:00 tip from the Wach. How's an Williams-Holiday-Iguodala-Brand-Dalembert starting five looking to you?