Sam Donnellon: Feels like glory days for Sixers

AT TIMES, Aaron McKie gets that feeling again, the one he carries around in his pocket as if it is his license. Andre Iguodala feathers a pass to Evan Turner in midflight for a slam and the Wells Fargo crowd collectively hits its feet. Elton Brand hits the deck for a loose ball under his own basket. Evan Turner finishes off a tic-tac-toe fastbreak slam. Jrue Holiday goes behind his back on a drive down the lane in traffic, slamming it as punctuation, and the 15,201 hit their feet again.

Noise. Noise. Noise. Nothing like it here since, well, 2001.

"I started to feel that way last year," McKie was saying before the Sixers lost in overtime last night to the Denver Nuggets, another game in their young season with a heart-attack finish. "This group is a little bit more talented than we were. I think we were a little bit more feisty. But we've got a chance to be really good. And, man, it's fun to see our young guys develop."

That was before the game. Before one of their youngest, 21-year-old point guard Jrue Holiday, exemplifying "work in progress," passed the ball to the other guys with a couple of ticks left on the clock, dooming a last chance to win this game or at least send it to a second overtime period. The down side of a team dependent on young legs is that they are attached to young minds. And in a game in which 400-year-old Andre Miller scored most of his 28 points with his noggin, the Sixers' youthful roster generated leads, deficits, comebacks and finally, a fatal last-second mistake.

"What I always tell Jrue," McKie had said beforehand, "is that you want to be a point guard where some day [head coach] Doug [Collins] is sitting over there with his legs crossed because you're out there calling the shots. That's the goal to be a championship team."

They are not that. Not yet. They have won 10 of their 14 games this season, and they try hard, night after night. It is enough to beat the many dysfunctional NBA teams out there and become an increasingly tough out for the well-constructed, star-laden ones. But is there enough here to believe it can ever be any more than that?

Or do you need at least one Sixer to emerge into bona-fide stardom, good enough to become one of those NBA marketing vehicles that commissioner David Stern touted during a supportive visit to the Wells Fargo Center last night? Do you need at least one of them to become a reason to believe that this team is on the precipice not of competitiveness, but a championship?