Philadelphia 76ers
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An opposing team's scout sizes up the 76ers

Andre Miller is a good point guard, Kyle Korver is an excellent shooter, they've got a rebounder and shot-blocker in Samuel Dalembert and Andre Iguodala is their young star. So the parts are there; it's just a matter of how good they are, if the talent level is high enough. I think in the end they won't have enough talent or depth, but I guarantee they'll give you 48 minutes of hard play because Maurice Cheeks won't let them lay down and they seem to play hard for him. Mo will throw some defensive pressure in there, and it's easy to pressure the ball when you have Dalembert back there at the goal ...

Iguodala made big strides after the Allen Iverson trade last year, and I'm sure they're counting on him to keep improving this year. You can build around him, but I don't know if he is the guy who is going to carry your team. There aren't a whole lot of those guys. But is he a good piece? He's definitely a valuable asset, and there's no reason you wouldn't want to hang on to him. He might even be your best player when you have a good team, though you'd hope you'd have somebody at least as good as him on your roster. But he isn't going to be the best player on a great team ...

I wouldn't say that he can't create his own shot, because he's pretty talented off the dribble. He's long, athletic, a great finisher in transition and in filling the wings. He can handle the ball, he can drive. If he makes perimeter shots with any consistency, he's going to be all the more potent offensively. That's probably true with a lot of the young, athletic players in the league: They can get to the basket and free throw line, but they need to improve their consistency on perimeter shots. If you can't make people come out and play you 20-23 feet from the basket, then you're going to run into two or three defenders in the middle of the lane. That's why Mo uses lot of trick defenses and pressure -- it's to get the fast break going and to get Iguodala going to the basket ...

Defensively, Iguodala is long and active and he'll get up and play the ball. Whether he can defend the shooting guards is going to be a hard call for them. Sometimes he'll do it when Korver can't keep up with the quicker guards ...

Miller comes into camp out of shape and starts off slowly, and that might help get them in an early-season hole that they'll never come out of. But they'll compete to the end like last season, when they were a factor in knocking teams out that were trying to get into the playoffs ...

One of Miller's strengths is that he's very good passing off the dribble like Jason Kidd and Steve Nash. Whereas Stephon Marbury has to grab it with both hands to make a pass, and by the time he picks up the ball with two hands it's too late, Andre can keep the ball alive and snap the pass with one hand off his dribble. That's how you hit cutters ...

When they traded Iverson for Miller, I bet it was the boost they've been waiting for for a while, just to be able to play the game a different way as opposed to how their style was dictated by Iverson. Of course, now Miller is going to have to show he can play all 82, because they're really going to be counting on him ...

There isn't much behind Miller. Louis Williams is more of a scorer who they're trying to make into a point guard because he's really small. And Kevin Ollie is last-resort insurance, decent for 10 minutes or less a game ...

With Korver they do lot of drive-and-kick things, and for Willie Green they do a little bit of that too. I thought they were an unselfish team that passed the ball very well last year ...

If Korver isn't in the upper class as a shooter, then he's right there on the cusp, one of the most feared catch-and-shoot guys who isn't one of the leading scorers in the league. He's right there with Jason Kapono with that quick release. He works very well off screens, he knows how to read the defense and where he's going to be open, and he squares up quickly and gets the shots up. Because he's playing with Miller, the defense has to be so conscious of Korver coming off screens, and if somebody is overplaying him, he'll cut backdoor. But he also had an advantage playing with Iverson, who sucked in the defense so much that Korver was left open. Ultimately, they're going to have to overpay Korver to keep him because somebody will give him the money for his shooting. But he does give effort in other areas -- he doesn't just do the old toreador thing on defense ...

They need a solid year from Dalembert because they lack depth there. He's a jumper who's quick off his feet, and to his detriment he takes himself out of position a lot. He's a help-defender shot-blocker. When he blocks his own man's shot, it's after he gets beat and then recovers, but then that also gets him in foul trouble. Dalembert is a nice piece, but he isn't going to be an offensive threat. Last year he had a bad year, but earlier in his career he showed he could hit jump shots from the elbow. He has this big arcing shot that he shoots from behind his head and it's hard to block. You won't see them posting up Dalembert or Reggie Evans, who will be in there to rebound, play defense and set screens ...

Until they got Evans, I thought they'd be in trouble for rebounding because Joe Smith gave them nothing in that area last year. That was a heck of a deal [with Denver], Stephen Hunter for Reggie Evans. I'd do that one any day. Evans is undersized as a power forward, but he's going to outwork people, chase down long rebounds, scrap and fight and defend. He doesn't have the length to be a shot-blocker, so that's where he and Dalembert should have a good working relationship covering for each other's weaknesses. He's a vocal team defender, and that's big coming from the back line. It's kind of like the catcher of a baseball team calling the defensive plays because he's got everything in sight ...

It will be interesting to see how Shavlik Randolph does because he was playing well before he got hurt [he broke his ankle one month into the season]. He grabs offensive rebounds, he's big and strong and quick to the basket, he can hit short shots and he's quick off his feet ...

As a team, they're in better shape than a lot of people thought they'd be after trading Iverson. But in this day and age of player movement, you can build a team a lot faster through free agency than the draft. When you're a bad team and getting top picks all the time, you're expected to play those guys. But when a guy comes out after one year of college, you know he's not going to be ready to play in the NBA for four years, yet you've got to play him and take your lumps while he figures it out. The way I look at it, the 76ers management's hands were tied with Iverson, so I give them a pass to fight their way out of this period ...

But Cheeks will be on the hot seat, especially with Larry Brown sitting right there. His guys like to play for him and they respect him, though sometimes he looks a little disorganized. From a scouting standpoint he's not very intricate, and he uses a lot of Larry Brown's stuff in his offensive and defensive schemes. But he's a lot looser on the offensive end than Larry, and he seems to make things up on the fly. When he sees something that he wants to do, he might run it five to eight times in row. Miller is probably a good point guard with him because Mo lets him run the team and call the plays, and he probably leans on Andre quite a bit to decide what the team needs ...

The bottom line is that it's going to be hard to fire Mo Cheeks in Philly. He was an icon there before Iverson was, and he's probably more loved than Iverson -- more loved by the people who are buying season tickets, though maybe not by the people who are buying jerseys and sneakers ...

What they need is to find or develop somebody else besides Iguodala as a big-time scorer. That's the next step.