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Andre Miller: The stigma of being a true point guard for a losing team

The Sixers are off until Tuesday when they travel to Washington to take on the Wizards at 7pm. As usual, the game will be on ComcastSportsNet and 610WIP radio. Never fear, Sixers fans! We’ve always got our game faces on.

Speaking of game faces, you will notice a couple of new faces to join the site very soon below Anthony and I. Today’s post features the thoughts of the pending new additions. First, Sean Watts shares his thoughts following Friday’s win over the Blazers:

“Friday night was the official start of the the Trade Miller countdown. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate Miller’s level-headed quarterbacking, but Lou Williams is beginning to understand just how good he can be. I think this is the 1st time that a Sixers player has actually taken Summer League play and translated it to the regular season.As far as Iguodala goes, I really love the way he closes games. He has a knack to really turn into a stud down the stretch and he’s hit the dagger shot in two of their 3 wins.

Mo playing Young was the biggest surprise. He called on the Kid, and the Kid came through. My favorite Young plays were the aggressive O-Board and putback, and the swing pass to Lou. The fact that in his first big NBA crunch minutes, he had the presense of mind to reverse the ball to get an even better shot than the one he had, speaks volumes to his Hoops IQ. Young, Williams and Smith all have a good feel and mind for the game, especially for being so young. Combine that with Iguodala’s great hoops smarts, and look out Future!!”

Look out is right! Of course, I’d say look out for trade rumors with the name of Andre Miller in them. Looking at these numbers are not too inspiring, but he’s been suffering from the flu.

Is this the “true point guard” we acquired from Denver? Granted, he was largely responsible for helping us finish around .500 post-Iverson and 17-9 in the last 26 games towards the end of last season. It appears like he’s playing his way out of Philly, with his tendency to shoot more and set his teammates up less. Is there something else going on with him? I recall that he played this way for the Clippers too, so perhaps his play is indicative of the team around him. However, looking at these statistics from our former point guard makes you wonder what all the talk was about getting Miller.

Speaking of point guards, it was nice to see Mo give Kevin Ollie some time against the Blazers. Ollie is really the only one of the point/combo guards we have that can actually guard opposing shooting guards on a regular basis. He made a nice combo with Lou Williams in the second half on Friday, and Aarick Knighton has this to say about the game…

“What a game! These 2 games in 1 are a pain. It was one of the craziest games I’ve seen. They definitely didn’t look like an NBA team in the first half, showing no clue about what they were doing on offense and defense. I sound like a broken record talking about turnovers by DreDala and the entire team each game. Turnovers? We talkin’ about Turnovers, man! Sorry… Anyway, it was tough to watch.What turned it around in my opinion was Kevin Ollie and when Coach Cheeks grew a pair and benched Andre Miller. But instead of showing off his power for a short stint, he kept the shuffle of Kevin Ollie and Lou Williams in the entire second half. What a statement! He also went with TY in the first half, which I was so happy about. Anybody with eyes could see that Thad Young looked way better and more comfortable than Rodney Carney has ever looked and will probably ever look. With Sam and Jason Smith in foul trouble, he [finally] showed he knows his players better than we do.

Let’s first start with KO. He was running around, trapping, switching and playing excellent defense. You could tell he and Thaddeus Young were fresh from the limited minutes this season compared to everyone else. He changed the attitude of the whole team with his aggressive defense. It didn’t stop there though. I thought the offense was a bit smoother with him in instead of Andre Miller using 10 seconds of the shot clock posting up or looking for his famous ‘thread the needle’ pass underneath. I, along with other people, was hoping for KO to get some run since nothing else was working off the bench lately. It paid off.

Another thing that just isn’t working with the starting unit is Reggie Evans. Hey, I appreciate hard work as much as the next guy, but there’s a reason the guy has never averaged more than 25 minutes and therefore can never lead the league in rebounding. Trust me, he could if a team was willing to swallow his offensive limitations. I think he is the main reason for the stagnant offense and his few offensive rebounds are not worth hoping for a miracle comeback every game. Spacing is terrible with him in and I never really believed it, but it is really 4 on 5 on offense which doesn’t bode well for Dre since that usually means a double team. His pick and rolls are counterproductive since nobody respects his roll. Jason Smith and maybe Thad Young needs to play with the starting unit next game…Probably won’t happen.

With the reminder that Kevin Ollie still has some juice left, Lou Will’s continued emergence and Andre Miller’s bad play, the departure of DreMillz at the trade deadline is becoming more and more inevitable with each passing game. I’m in a little denial about this because, how can you not win with a pass first point guard? Even though he’s been shipped around his during his NBA days, it’s more of the situation this time around. He got caught up into a rebuilding situation when at this point and time in his career, he would be better suited for a team that has a superstar player and are playoff bound. Then he won’t be forced to shoot so much which would lead to his decline in TO’s and his increase again in assists. It seems that the platoon of Lou Will and KO can hold down the fort at the PG position. And if they can’t…at least you’ll know what you need to draft.

I’m very encouraged by this win and hope that it can turn this season around before this bad play picks up steam and we’re headed for a disappointing season. GO SIXERS!”

We’re encouraged too, but less so with the people running the show. There will be more on Monday’s “Memo to Management” segment, including our suspicions that Larry Brown might be up to something and a guest feature from a regular P&P reader, Mike Dervin. Stick with Passion and Pride throughout the season for the best Sixers analysis on the web.

BONUS: Please leave us a comment on whether you feel the solution is to trade Andre Miller or perhaps someone else. We’d love to hear what you think. Does Miller want out? Who do you want out? This is your chance to have your voice heard!

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 18th, 2007 at 3:29 am and is filed under Kevin Ollie, Mo Cheeks, Andre Iguodala, Lou Williams, Reggie Evans, Mike Dervin, Aarick Knighton, Sean Watts, Rodney Carney, Andre Miller, Los Angeles Clippers, Denver Nuggets, Washington Wizards, Jason Smith, Allen Iverson, Passion and Pride, Thaddeus Young, Philadelphia 76ers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.