FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.
When Philadelphia took just about the most raw point guard possible (Jrue Holiday) in the June draft, then declined to make a strong play to retain incumbent point guard Andre Miller, then declined to cash any other middle tier free agent point guards on the market ... that's when Louis Williams became a starting NBA point guard.
Up until now, Lou has been a bench fireplug for the 76ers, playing both guard positions. It's the classic combo situation: he's a shooting guard with slight point guard tendencies who happens to be the height of a point guard. He's a Bobby Jackson, a Leandro Barbosa. And like Jackson and Barbosa, Williams to this point has been a bench player exclusively.
But with Miller gone and Holiday wrapped in nori, that's about to change.
Five Things takes a look at five things to watch out for in marquee games with playoff implications.
We've got a trifecta of Game 3's on Friday. We've got an Eastern Powerhouse trying to prolong its relevance, and the new Eastern Order trying to showcase how dominant it really is. We have a scrappy underdog showing you that to overlook them leads to your own peril. And we have a physically and emotionally wounded star-crossed titan battling the basketball equivalent of a populist movement.
So what should you be paying attention to this evening? 5 Things has you covered. Let's talk about Cleveland-Detroit, Orlando-Philadelphia, and Portland-Houston.
Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the "lig." Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.
J.R. Smith took 14 field goal attempts for Denver last night. Thirteen of those came from behind the arc. He made eight, for a decent 57% shooting clip. But figure the three-pointer's bonus, and holy cow! that's 24 points on 14 shots. He added four FTs for a total of 28. Nuggets win, and remain in pole position for the No. 2 seed.
Deron Williams had 18/10 for the Jazz, and C.J. Miles had his best night in about six weeks with 19 points. It took Carlos Boozer 23 shots to get 15 points. That's a whole lotta misses.
When Ed Stefanski moved into Philly's front office last December, a lot of people figured it was just a matter of time before Mo Cheeks was handed his walking papers. After all, Cheeks was in the midst of the final year of his contract, and in this day and age of the salary cap and guaranteed contracts, the easiest way for a new GM to put his stamp on an organization is hand-picking a new coaching staff.
But instead of giving Cheeks the axe, Stefanski gave him a one-year extension in February. And after watching Cheeks orchestrate a surprising second-half run, in which the Sixers went from being 12 games under .500 to not only securing the seventh seed but also pushing the favored Pistons to six games, Stefanski rewarded Cheeks with another extension today. (How many years? Stay tuned -- exact details should come out after this afternoon's press conference.)
After Philly made a big splash earlier this summer by giving truckloads of money to Elton Brand and Andre Iguodala, I'm guessing today's news will barely register on the radar of most NBA fans. But in my opinion, locking Cheeks up should prove to be just as (if not more) instrumental to Philly's re-emergence as one of the top teams in the East.
Marshall, at 35, isn't going to be getting any significant playing time, just as he hasn't in his last several stops, including Chicago, Cleveland and Seattle. With OKC looking forward, they agreed to a buyout, which allowed Marshall to sign with the Sixers. While Marshall doesn't have much to provide a loaded Sixers squad on the floor, he is known to be the quintessential locker room leader, and provides experience and guidance for a notably young team.
To look at the Sixers up and down now that Ed Stefanski has completed the polishing of the roster, it's clear that it's been nothing but upgrades for Philadelphia. Stefanski has managed to add significant talent without taking on bad contracts in trades, hasn't gone for any unnecessary homeruns, and has resigned a very popular player that, despite a lot of misgivings, definitely gets it done in the boxscore. Let's go ahead and pencil in Stefanski for Executive of the Year next year. Sure it's early, but the Sixers have gone from the surprising plucky team to a legitimate force in the East under him. And he didn't even need Kevin McHale selling the farm for a couple of chickens to do it.
Anyway, here's hoping Marshall doesn't have anymore 'wardrobe malfunctions' in Philly.
We interrupt this coverage of Ben Gordon asking for more money than he's worth to bring you news of Andre Iguodala wanting more than he thinks he's worth.
A report in the Phoenixville News (which references an unspecified report from Comcast Sports Net) states that sources inside Iguodala's camp say he is seeking a 6 year, $75 million deal that puts his deal above such free agent signings as Emeka Okafor, Monta Ellis, and Luol Deng if you don't factor in Deng's incentive bonuses. Let's simplify that. Andre Iguodala wants 6 years, $75 million.
As my father-in-law would say, "People in hell want ice water."
See, two months, ago, this might not have been a big deal. Sure, Iguodala was a huge disappointment in the playoffs, shooting 33% and averaging over 4 turnovers per game. And yeah, his assists and rebounds were down this season. But he was also brilliant in stretches for the scrappy Sixers club, and a large part of why that team made the playoffs. He could have probably demanded that kind of money reasonably as the best player on the team.
"It's a good deal for Louis," Merle Scott, Williams' agent, told the Daily News. "It gives him a chance to grow with a team that's building and allows him to stay with the team he came into the league with."
It'll be interesting to see what kind of deal Williams was able to get -- he's yet to start a single game in his career but is considered a vital piece of the team's backcourt of the future. In fact, it's conceivable he could be running the point full-time by the end of the year if the team decides to move Andre Miller's expiring $10 million contract at the deadline.
While locking up Williams is good for the team's future, the team still needs to figure out how to get Andre Iguodala under contract if they want to compete this year. What will it take to get it done? Looking at the contracts that Emeka Okafor and Luol Deng (two of Iggy's classmates from the 2004 draft) just signed, Philly wouldn't be negotiating in good faith if they didn't open the discussion at six years and $71 million.
For a team that looked destined for the lottery early in the year, the Sixers deserve a lot of credit for not only making the playoffs but also making the Pistons sweat. There are a lot of talented young pieces on this 76ers team, and a coach who knows how to help them improve. This team will be back next year, and if they invest their free agent dollars wisely, they may even contend for home court advantage. (No, seriously.) Let's recap their playoff run:
How They Got to the Dance: Believe it or not, the 76ers were actually one of the hottest teams in the league for a stretch in the second half, winning 19 of 24 from early February to late March. Losing five of six right at the end of the regular season kept them from posting a winning record (they finished 40-42), but that second-half surge was the result of a very young team taking the next step.
How They Got Bounced: Simply put, the Pistons woke up. The Sixers should be commended for jumping out to a 2-1 series lead, but the Pistons were just too deep, too talented and too experienced to simply roll over. That said, it would've helped Andre Iguodala failed to live up to top banana status, a role for which he may or may not be suited; the team's leading scorer in the regular season, Iguodala was held to just 13 points a night on 30% shooting. Even if the team's two wins he was largely irrelevant, a performance that likely cost him a few million off his next contract.
Notes from a trip to the NBA Playoffs. Continuing with the "youth is served" meme that keeps popping up this postseason, let's take a look at the 76ers. The last time this team was in the playoffs, they were riding the backs of aging superstars Allen Iverson and Chris Webber. This time around, they have but one player (32-year-old Andre Miller) in the rotation older than 27.
While listening to Mo Cheeks talk to the press before last night's Game 5 match with the Pistons, I couldn't help but notice how much he seems to enjoy the responsibility of teaching as well as coaching.
"I enjoy coaching. I can't play anymore, so this is the closest thing I can do to play. I enjoy all of the things that come with it -- I don't enjoy you guys too much [laughter] -- but I enjoy all the things that go with coaching, and that is what I tell my players. ... I particularly enjoy when I see Lou Williams and [reminding] him about being up the floor and [how he'll have] a chance to get a steal up the court -- and I'll look up and he's up the floor and he's getting a steal. Those are some of the rewards of coaching.
"I'm pretty fortunate in that I have players that listen, they try to go out and do all these things right. And I'm very fortunate in that area that I have these guys that go out there and try and do things right and listen, and they don't always do them right [laughs] but they're out there trying to do them. And that's a very fortunate thing for me as a coach, and I think that's rewarding for our coaches is that you have these guys, you're trying to teach them, you're trying to show them different things about the game and then they go out and try to do it."
We Rite Goode added a special category to the season's final Blogger MVP Rankings last week: seventh man of the year. The reasoning?
We elected to skip 6th Man--not just because Manu Ginobili was near-unanimous, but since typical candidates are de facto starters--and instead wanted to recognize a true impact reserve. A player who doesn't get starter's minutes (so, no one who played more than 24 mpg) and came off the bench all season (so, no one who started more than 25% of the games he played in).
The winner? Jason Maxiell of the Pistons, the leader of the Zoo Crew. He finished ahead of Denver's J.R. Smith and Philadelphia's Louis Williams. And while Manu and Leandro Barbosa are obvious picks for Sixth Man honors, this level of player surely has plenty of highly important guys.
The definition of sixth-man has been so distorted by the Spurs and Mavericks, anyway. It works against those teams around the All-Star Game (where Manu's absence was criminal) but wins them uncontested support in year-end voting. And you know what? Gregg Popovich and Avery Johnson don't care. They don't care about the awards ... bringing Manu and Jason Terry off the bench is better for their teams. (Ditto Maxiell and Smith.)
(WRG's post also contains some terrific charts on season-long sentiments re: the MVP race. Well worth a gander.)
FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.
Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the "lig." 
When 
The Sixers landed their big name free agent in 
We interrupt this coverage of 
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