Philly Front Office

In some ways, it was a long time coming, but still no one actually thought the Sixers and Allen Iverson would ever get a divorce. When the 2006-07 season came along though, it was pretty clear it was over. The team had been through 4 coaches in just over 2 seasons and Iverson was butting heads with all of them. As the season started, the Sixers were floundering and Iverson and the team agreed it was time to go. He denies demanding a trade, but he wasn’t upset that he was leaving. Despite being 2nd in the league in scoring, on December 19th, Iverson was traded.

Sixers at the Trade Deadline

Denver was getting Iverson and legendary power forward Ivan McFarlin (who will absolutely win you a trivia question at some point in your life) in exchange for Andre Miller, Joe Smith, and 2 future first round picks. Let’s see how everyone made out in the deal.

The Nuggets

Allen Iverson came to Denver at the height of the Carmelo Anthony era. Remember how I said Iverson was 2nd in scoring? Well, Anthony was first at the time. Iverson’s scoring output dropped in Denver, but his efficiency went up across the board. The team was 14-9 when Iverson arrived but was only just over a .500 team with him finishing at 45-37 good for the 6th seed in the West. They lost to the eventual champion Spurs in the 1st round, 4-1.

Year 2 seemed better considering the team’s 50-32 improvement, but they finished as the 8th seed and were swept out of the playoffs in the first round by the Lakers. The Nuggets led the league in scoring, but even with DPOY runner up Marcus Camby, they were a sieve on defense.

Despite the Iverson experience, the Answer wore himself out of Denver. 3 games into the 2008-09 season, he was traded to Detroit for Chauncey Billups. From there, his career hit a precipitous decline and he was out of the league by 2010.

Iverson has since been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame and has somewhat reinvented himself as a Sixers and NBA ambassador. He’s one of the few previous generation NBAers who actually seems to still like NBA basketball. These are all competitive guys who love to say how soft the NBA is and how they still got it. Not AI. He is nothing but complimentary, congratulates all the guys, and seems to be enjoying himself whenever he’s at the arena. I know he’s polarizing for many, but I hope this Iverson has a perpetual home at Sixers games.

THE Ivan McFarlin was the ingredient of the trade that the Nuggets were steadfast about including and the one the Sixers were hesitant to give away. The undrafted forward out of Oklahoma State signed with the Sixers in the offseason and filled the stat sheet in 11 games with the Sixers: 15 points in 41 minutes with 1 assist, 0 steals and 0 blocks. He missed his only 3 point attempt. The Nuggets waived him immediately and he was never seen in an American arena again.

The Sixers

Andre Miller played for a LOT of teams in the NBA (9), but somehow his second longest continuous stint was his 2.5 years in Philly. In that time, he never missed a single game and even took the team to the playoffs twice (both 6 game losses). In baseball, I always appreciated the guys who played forever and kept finding their way onto playoff teams but were never huge stars, Kenny Lofton and Reggie Sanders types. That’s Andre Miller. He was always good, never great, and made your team competitive but never a champ. I hope this analogy made sense.

Joe Smith is an unbelievably memorable NBA player but not really for anything he ever did on the court. He was solid and had a long career, but no one cares about that. The former #1 overall pick was traded by the Warriors in his 3rd year to the Sixers (for Jim Jackson and Clarence Weatherspoon) after declining several extensions offers apparently in the $80m range. He signed with the Timberwolves for a 1 /$3m deal instead. Huh? Turns out Smith had a deal with Minny on the side and was circumventing the salary cap. The deals voided and Smith was out a ton of promised money. It was a huge scandal. Anyway, in his second stint in Philly, post-Iverson, Smith played in 54 games, averaged less than 10 points per game and walked at the end of the season.

August 10, 2012: The Sixers Trade for Andrew Bynum

Both First Round Picks were in the 2007 NBA Draft where Greg Oden infamously went #1 over Kevin Durant. The Sixers were picking 12th that day and nabbed Thadeus Young out of Georgia Tech. The picks from the trade were slated to be #21 and #30.

The Sixers traded the 21st pick to the Miami Heat to move up to #20 to select Jason Smith (Miami grabbed Daequan Cook). Smith lasted 3 seasons in Philly with 1 being completely lost to injury. Awesome. He averaged 4 points and 13 minutes per game for the Sixers. He bounced around the league for 11 years but was never any good. He did make $37m in the process though so what the hell am I talking about?

The 30th pick originally started in Dallas before being traded to Golden State and then Denver before they gave it to Philly…who then traded it to Portland for the 42nd pick and cash. Awesome move guys. Any time you can trade a first round pick for nothing, you HAVE TO MAKE THAT TRADE! At #30, the Blazers selected Petteri Koponen who I have absolutely never heard of and who never played in the NBA. The Sixers selected Derrick Byars at 42. Who the hell is Derrick Byars? No offense, but no one. He didn’t even make the team. After playing oversees for 4 years, he made it into 2 games with the Spurs scoring 10 points, almost as much as Ivan McFarlin! It’s a good thing the Sixers didn’t try to go the foreign player route by drafting Marc Gasol who was selected 6 slots later.

To sum it up, the Iverson trade basically yielded the Sixers Andre Miller. Honestly, considering how everything played out, they may have won the trade on paper. Not really though. Philly basketball was starless for the first time in forever (minus the 3 years between Barkley and Iverson). It wasn’t too long before this was a basically destitute franchise in need of a complete blow up. You could say that the last 19 years of Sixers basketball began with this move.