In a curious way, tonight's attractions include Iverson and what will almost certainly be an on-the-fly version of last season's running Sixers. That is because Elton Brand, the power forward brought in to be the low-post threat they hadn't had, remained at home with a strained right hamstring suffered in Wednesday's loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.
And it is, after all, all about adjusting.
While Brand has struggled to find his way with a Sixers team unaccustomed to having a low-post player, at least Brand had a training camp with his new teammates. Iverson joined the Pistons in an in-season trade with the Nuggets for Chauncey Billups, a deal Larry Brown - who coached both players - described as "Marilyn Monroe for Jane Russell." (OK, OK, the rest of the NBA would have understood better had he said "Beyoncé Knowles for Penelope Cruz," but that's another story.)
Brand came to a young team that had just made it back to the playoffs for the first time in four seasons, a team that seemed to need his specific skills around the basket; they need to adjust to him and, to this point, have had a difficult time doing that. Iverson came to a team that has reached the Eastern Conference finals the last six seasons, and in that stretch has been to the NBA Finals twice and won a championship; the Pistons are asking a four-time scoring champion, the player with the third-best career scoring average in history behind Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain, to just fit in.
