NBA philadelphia 76ers

ORLANDO -- Elton Brand sure seems like a nice enough guy -- respectful, courteous, thoughtful, engaging. He works hard, too.

Yet he also is beginning to look like an albatross hanging around the neck of the Philadelphia 76ers, the guy with the contract that will prevent them from building a serious contender in the coming years.

Brand, 30, is starting his 10th season in the league, but just the second year of that five-year, $80 million contract he signed as a free agent two summers ago. Although the Sixers were convinced that signing him was wise back then, they are having serious reservations now about the move.

It's one painful decision they would like to have back.

ORLANDO -- When the Orlando Magic signed out-of-work Jason Williams this summer to a one-year, minimum wage contract, they made it sound like he was coming merely to be an insurance policy, giving them a past-his-prime, third point guard in case the bottom fell out on the other two.

He's obviously going to be more, a lot more for a real good team.

Williams, 33, is no longer the flashy, wrap-around-passing entertainer he was earlier in his career in Sacramento, but he looks refreshed and ready to play at a high level once again, adding another strong weapon to the defending Eastern Conference champs.

A year off certainly did him well.

ORLANDO -- To many who follow the NBA, it doesn't seem that long ago that Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer led the Detroit Pistons -- the famed Bad Boys -- to their second consecutive NBA title in 1990, cementing their place among the great teams in league history.

It was two days after Jrue Holiday was born.

Holiday, a rookie guard for the Philadelphia 76ers, isn't just the youngest player in the NBA this season. He also earned the distinction of being the first person born in the 1990's to be on an NBA roster.

That makes a lot of us feel old.

PHOENIX -- The Sixers almost came back from an 18-point deficit in the final eight minutes on Friday against the Suns, but the guys usually on the end of Phoenix's bench -- Dan Dickau, Carlos Powell, et al. -- were able to hang on just enough to secure a two-point victory.

Marreese Speights, a second-year player who averaged just under eight points and four rebounds a game last season, was a big reason for the Sixers' strong comeback. He scored 15 of his game-high 32 points in the fourth quarter, while also finishing with 12 rebounds and two blocked shots.

Even though this is the preseason, it was still a career game for Speights, and one that you'd think his new head coach, Eddie Jordan, would be excited about. But that wasn't exactly the case.

FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.

When Philadelphia took just about the most raw point guard possible (Jrue Holiday) in the June draft, then declined to make a strong play to retain incumbent point guard Andre Miller, then declined to cash any other middle tier free agent point guards on the market ... that's when Louis Williams became a starting NBA point guard.

Up until now, Lou has been a bench fireplug for the 76ers, playing both guard positions. It's the classic combo situation: he's a shooting guard with slight point guard tendencies who happens to be the height of a point guard. He's a Bobby Jackson, a Leandro Barbosa. And like Jackson and Barbosa, Williams to this point has been a bench player exclusively.

But with Miller gone and Holiday wrapped in nori, that's about to change.

FanHouse previews all 30 NBA teams in advance of the 2009-10 season.

The Philadelphia 76ers have a new coach, a new system and even a new player, kind of.

What they don't have, however, is a point guard to bring it all together.

The Sixers' most significant offseason move was hiring Eddie Jordan, who will bring along with him an offensive philosophy less about isolation and more about movement and flow.

It's possible the Sixers can improve on their .500 season from a year ago. But the responsibility for that happening will fall largely on power forward Elton Brand and guard Louis Williams. That's where the skepticism comes in.

The start of the NBA season is right around the corner, and that means the much-anticipated release of NBA 2K10. The video game hits stores nationwide on Oct. 6.

FanHouse attended the 2K10 launch party in New York City on Thursday, and spoke to Nate Robinson about re-signing with the Knicks, Andre Iguodala about the greatest moment in NBA2K history, and Brook Lopez about his new boss. Check out the video below.

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Wednesday, there are 34 days remaining.

He wasn't the best No. 34 who ever played the game -- that probably belongs to Hakeem Olajuwon or Shaquille O'Neal -- but he was the most controversial. And maybe the most contradictory.

Charles Barkley, who wore his 34 with both the Philadelphia 76ers and the Phoenix Suns, stood alone when it came to polarizing basketball fans.

Through his 16-year playing career, he had fans who absolutely adored him and the way he played the game. He had fans who absolutely hated him, for the way he played, the way he acted, and for the things he said.

Greg Grant was a short player who overcame long odds: standing just 5-foot-7 and playing college ball in Division III, he was drafted in the second round by the Phoenix Suns in 1989, lasting seven years in the NBA.

Earlier today, FanHouse featured the first chapter of Greg's autobiography, 94 Feet and Rising, written with the help of Martin Sumners and released in July. In the following excerpts, Greg recalls what it was like to play against Magic Johnson and share a locker room with Charles Barkley, two of the brightest stars the NBA has ever seen.

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Saturday, there are 59 days remaining.

Without hyperbole or exaggeration, we may never see another individual dominate team sports that way Wilt Chamberlain did over his 14-year career.

And yet, as strange as it sounds, Chamberlain's career almost feels incomplete, at least when you consider he was robbed of two seasons before his NBA career even began. Just like how archaic NCAA rules kept him from joining Kansas' varsity team as a freshman in 1955-56, NBA rules prohibited him from being drafted immediately after he left college early in 1958, prompting the best basketball player in the world to spend his first year as a pro barnstorming with the Harlem Globetrotters.

In the video after the jump, a young Chamberlain is interviewed shortly after he was finally drafted by the Philadelphia Warriors in 1959, explaining why he turned down more money to stay with the Globetrotters for the chance to play in the NBA.