Coatesvillain

Coming off of the best regular season of his career there were a lot of positives to be talked about. He played his most minutes per game (33.2), averaged his most rebounds (10.4), and putting up a surprisingly low 3.3 fouls per game. The Sixers needed him to stay on the floor and he did so making strides by playing the smartest basketball of his career.

When the Sixers found themselves matched up with the Pistons the warts began to show. Dalembert averaged a paltry 42% from the field and found himself completely outmatched by Rasheed Wallace. While a motivated, and frustrated, Wallace is a tough matchup for any defender it's hard to overlook how poorly Sammy played for most of the season. With three years and $34 million left on his contract (with word that teams wouldn't mind taking his salary) the question has to be raised about how long Dalembert will find himself in the City of Brotherly Love?

I'm not ready to give up on Dalembert, but I think it's getting near time to start thinking about his eventual replacement. Offensively the Sixers are simply asking for too much from him. There are some who are still expecting something to come consistently in the form of a back to the basket game, or for his jumper out to 15 to be more consistent but that's not going to happen. To get the best out of Dalembert he needs to be a garbage man. Get alley-oops, pass the ball to him when his man leaves him to double, and let him clean the board and score on putbacks. This is something that will be easier for the Sixers to accomplish if they fill the void at PF.

I mentioned earlier that the Sixers should look at his replacement, and I think that guy just might be Roy Hibbert from Georgetown. If he's on the board the Sixers will have to give it a long thought. He won't be a superstar, but he's a big body with good hands, who is good passing out of the post. He provides much more offensively than Dalembert. My dream scenario would be to draft Hibbert and use him as the primary center behind Dalembert as the team addresses PF elsewhere.

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Who cares about a championship drought?:
My teams will never win a championship anyway, so why don't you discuss everything else at my forum? Good idea, right? Yeah, I thought so. It's called.. Booing Santa Claus. See you there.