Senior year of high school I bought my first car - a 2000 Chevy Cavalier. I had saved up some money over the years and was ready to buy a car and ended up deciding on buying the Cavalier because it was about the most expensive brand new car I could afford at the time. It was a pretty sweet ride in my mind.  It was black with a pretty bitchin’ racing decal on both of the doors and had a CD player which back in 2000 was still somewhat of a novelty for someone in high school.

Enjoy the ride Sixers fans!

I thought it was pretty sweet, and for a while it was.  For a while, I had the nicest car amongst my friends.  Then I realized something.  All I did was lock my self into a pretty crappy car for the next eight years before I bought something nicer last spring.

Instead of just buying something to get me by until I was out of college and working and could afford a decent car payment, I spent all I had saved up on the Cavalier.  Now I got some good use out of that.  Me and that car had some good times together.  I drove that thing to Canada multiple times and a bunch of other random road trips.

By the time I traded her in though, she was missing the stereo (stolen), had a dent in the hood (thank you route 76), had a whole lot of scratches to the bumper, and had a giant scratch in the back (thanks street parking).  I ended up holding on to that car for a while too because I wanted to get my money out it.

The current situation with the Sixers and Elton Brand is starting to remind of my Cavalier just a little too much.  After years of suffering through bad contracts and no cap space the Sixers entered last summer with tons of cap space and were ready to be major players in free agency.  The only problem was last summer’s free agent market was pretty weak.  So what did the Sixers do? Instead of being sensible and signing someone to get them by, they went out and spent all of their money on the best that was available at the time.

Now they’re locked into Brand for the next five years and he’ll be coming off a second major injury in two years when the 2009-10 season tips off next fall.  Nevermind the fact that it looks like there’s two perfectly good power forwards who are both much younger on the current roster in Thaddeus Young and Maresse Speights who fit the style of play the Sixers are best at.  What happens to those two when Brand comes back?  None can really play center.  Young might be able to play small forward, but so far that experiment hasn’t worked out all that well.

So what do the Sixers do with both of them when Brand comes back?  Do they trade one?  Can they even trade Brand?  Do they change their style of play to accommodate Brand?  Look how well that’s worked out for the Suns with Shaq.   If Isaiah Thomas was still running the show in New York, I would say maybe we could ship Brand up 95 next year, but he’s not and to my knowledge Billy King isn’t a GM anywhere either.  Who knows, maybe Ed Stefanski can convince Steve Kerr to take Brand off our hands - he took Shaq off of Miami’s hands and gave the Heat one of the best all around players in the game last year.

The Sixers continued trucking along in the absence of Elton Brand with a relatively easy 108-91 victory over the Phoenix Suns Monday night.  The Sixers were led by their young power forwards - Thaddeus Young and Maresse Speights - who combined for 49 points, 12 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocks in 54 minutes.  They did this against a Suns team which features a front court of Amare Stoudemire and Shaquelle O’Neal - not bad for a couple of young kids who wouldn’t be playing nearly as much if the big off-season acquisition hadn’t gotten hurt.

The Sixers had the benefit of playing the Suns on the backend of back to back games which limited Shaq to 21 points and Steve Nash to just 22.

A year ago this would have been a much better game to watch.  Since the Suns traded Shawn Marion for Shaq and canned Mike D’Antoni they haven’t been nearly as good or nearly as exicting as they were just 12 months ago.  Watching the 08-09 Sixers vs. the 07-8 Suns would have matched two fun and gun teams and the final score would have probably been something like 115-110.

Instead, this game matched two teams who both sabotoged their 08-09 seasons while trying to take the step from pretender to contender.  The Suns imploded their team by completely revamping their style of play when they acquired Shaq and then pushed D’Antoni out the door.  The Sixers ended up bringing in a power forward which didn’t fit their system when they had two perfectly good ones, much younger in age on their roster after finally having tons of cap space for the first time in years - as evidenced by tonight’s breakout games for both Young and Speights.

Andre Igoudola had another well rounded game and is looking more and more like the player the Sixers thought they were locking up over the summer.  Iggy chipped in 22 points, 5 rebounds, and 7 assists.

The Sixers are sitting two games over .500 with one more game before the All Star break.  Memphis visits the Wachovia Center Wednesday.  Highlights below.

Thaddaddy of These Young'ins

Second year forward Thaddeus Young has been selected to participate in the NBA’s Rookie vs. Sophomore game, which will take place 2/13/09.  Young earned to nod by putting up solid numbers thus far in 08-09, averaging 13.5 points, 5.0 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 1.1 steals per game.

Sixers rookie Marreese Speights was not as fortunate, and was snubbed from the rookie team.  Speights has averaged only 15 minutes/game, but has put up 7.9 points, 3.9 and .9 blocks per game.

Full rosters below: