Different Story

Unfortunately, after your dream season comes your next season.

Nothing lasts forever and the more precious something is, the more perishable, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Philadelphia 76ers look like everyone else again.

They no longer rule the NBA’s Eastern Conference, or even hold a playoff slot at present.

Their warrior tyke, Allen Iverson, is shooting 39%, low even for him. Less than a year after they got the 35-year-old Dikembe Mutombo in a controversial deal, there’s speculation in the local papers about trading him for Denver’s Antonio McDyess and Raef LaFrentz.

This may not be the Nuggets’ idea of fair value, but it would be a great fit. McDyess is out until February, which would make him a perfect 76er, the only team reputed to travel by ambulance.

These are only garden-variety problems, but for the 76ers, it’s like awakening from a dream, where it was one for all and all for one, where everyone threw his crutches away and played, coming within sight of the promised land, while the town that booed Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny fell head over heels for them.

So what if the Lakers walked on them in the NBA Finals? The Lakers were way better and the 76ers were out on their feet ... although, in the 76ers’ inimitable style, they refused to concede as much, winning the opener as Iverson scored 48 points, and making contests out of Games 2 and 3.

“I got a bunch like him,” Coach Larry Brown said of the giant-economy-size-hearted Iverson in the fall, when he could still remember back as far as last spring.

“George Lynch fractured his foot in the Toronto game [in the East semifinals]. We played in the late afternoon. Our plane landed at midnight, his wife took him to the hospital, he was operated on in the morning so he could try to get back for the Laker series....

“Eric Snow, he had a pin in his leg. He displaced the bone, but the pin kept it from completely displacing and he played in the Laker series.

“And Aaron [McKie], we knew had a chronic shoulder injury [and then broke a bone in his leg in the opener against the Lakers], and Allen had the elbow and they all played....

“Everywhere I went this summer, people stopped me and told me, ‘I’m a Philly fan, I love your team, I love the way they play, I love how they compete.’

“And most of ‘em commented on my relationship with Allen, how much they appreciated what Allen had gone through and how far he’s come. I mean, I couldn’t have gotten better compliments. And players in the league, coming up to me and telling me how hard Allen’s teammates compete, how hard they try. It’s the best compliment a coach can get.”

These days, there haven’t been as many people coming up to say nice things.

Brown, coaching’s great romantic, was taking responsibility for everything, but that was only going to last so long.

Last week he noted Iverson’s absence at practice to rest his sore elbow (“We had everybody here, but Allen, which is typical”) and talked about all the shooters they had had who never got the ball.

The next game, Iverson limited himself to 17 shots in a 76er romp and responded, “I’ll let y’all and Coach have a ball with that. I’m not getting into anything like that ever again in my life. I’m tired of it. I’ll just leave it alone. Whatever he says, he’s right--totally.”

Actually, Brown is right, even if he’s way old school, but Iverson’s greatest virtue isn’t compromise. Sports Illustrated just caricatured Allen as a vampire in a full-page cartoon, under the heading: “The Answer, My Friend, Is Blowin’ In Around Two,” after which it notes, “The Philadelphia 76ers moved up their practice times to midafternoon to accommodate Allen Iverson’s vampiric schedule.”

But then it’s a hard call, whether Brown or Iverson makes the other crazier.

Owner Pat Croce, who used to go back and forth between Brown and Iverson, said they were really the same person, in different incarnations.

“When he got really upset,” Croce says, “I’d say, ‘Larry, look in the mirror, what do you see? That’s Allen Iverson you see. Same intensity, same impulsiveness, same sensitivity, same headstrong-ness.”

Croce’s gone now too. Look around, last season’s over.

World’s Best Owner (Ret.)

Part of me wants to grow, so that’s the easy part. I can walk away and move on.... It’s hard because there’s a void.... Like tonight will be the first day I don’t work the concourse before a game in five years. ‘Cause I love the people of Philadelphia. These are people who are passionate. And I saw their vengeance, I saw their smile, their exuberance. I saw ‘em from one end to the other.

--Croce, before the home opener

*

Everyone who was here on opening night last season, take a step forward.

Not so fast, all but three of you.

Iverson, McKie and Snow are not only the 76ers’ heart and soul but also their only holdovers from the roster that started the beginning of last season.

Theo Ratliff, Toni Kukoc, Nazr Mohammed, Vernon Maxwell and Pepe Sanchez left during the season. Lynch, Tyrone Hill, Todd MacCulloch, Jumaine Jones, Matt Geiger, Kevin Ollie and Rodney Buford have left since, with Jerome Moiso, Robert Traylor, Roshown MacLeod, Anthony Miller and Cedric Henderson, who were just passing through.

Oh, and Croce, who drafted Iverson, hired Brown and conjured up this dream, is out of there too.

There were few owners like Croce, who never lost touch with his Inner Homeboy or the guys from his ‘hood. In his case, that meant all the neighborhoods from the Main Line to the inner city and the kind of fans who stripped to the waist at Eagle games in December.

It was Croce who mediated the battle of wills between Brown and Iverson. Even Croce ran out of ideas, finally coming down on Brown’s side and agreeing to a package deal that would have sent Iverson to Detroit if Geiger hadn’t refused to waive his 15% trade kicker.

And it was Croce who left last summer when they wouldn’t pay him off with operational control of Spectacor, which owns the 76ers, Flyers and First Union Center.

So here he is, 47, in search of a new dream, on the street again ... literally.

Walking around Center City at lunch time, he exchanges greetings with everyone who recognizes him, which is just about everyone: shoppers, hard-hats eating out of lunch pails, a man talking into a cell phone who pauses in his conversation to hail him.

“Who you talking to?” asks Croce.

“My wife,” says the man.

“Let me talk to her!” says Croce, grabbing the phone out of the guy’s hand. “Hey, it’s Pat Croce! It’s your new boyfriend!”

“Hey, Pat!” says the wife, not missing a beat, “can you get us tickets?”

Imagine five years of this million-watt-up-close-and-personal interaction with every fan, player, reporter and other form of life he ran across and it’s easy to see why everyone loved Croce.

Well, maybe not everyone.

Croce actually had only a small piece of the 76ers, serving at the pleasure of Spectacor President Ed Snider, the longtime Flyer owner.

The basketball and hockey teams were tacit rivals before Comcast bought into both and created a new company, with Snider atop the directory.

Snider’s Flyers were prosperous local gentry, with a niche of their own and highly motivated fans who always showed up. The 76ers were more like a mass-market failure, their glory days long gone, bought by a succession of owners, each zanier than the one before.

Croce had started out as a Flyer physical therapist, showing Snider’s grunts how to stretch, before opening a chain of rehab facilities and hitting the big time himself.

There were also issues of generation and style (Snider is corporate and smooth, Croce plebeian and wired), so it’s not likely that Snider enjoyed Croce’s rise to folk hero as much as everyone else did.

Nor could Snider have been happy to see hints--which often found their way into the local papers, which Croce might as well have been publishing--that Pat would soon want more money and power.

Snider, asked about it last season as insiders saw things coming to a head, said he would review Croce’s status like that of any other “employee.”

Months later, Croce, who retains 2.5% of Spectacor, now watches what he says--which he can do when he wants to--but intimates say he never forgot Snider’s line.

Of course, Croce wasn’t completely selfless, slipping in plugs for himself whenever he wasn’t busy calling attention to himself by climbing something. (After he scaled the Walt Whitman Bridge during the NBA Finals, Channel 4’s Fred Roggin noted, “In L.A., you don’t climb a bridge, you have your people climb it for you.”)

On the other hand, it worked fabulously. Philadelphia reconnected with the franchise, which was back on its feet, even before last season when they almost put the maraschino cherry atop the big sundae. In theory, it should have been impossible to let a chief executive as popular and successful as Croce, with as much passion for the job, go.

In real life, however, it was easy.

Croce volunteered to take over Snider’s responsibilities. Not surprisingly, Snider demurred.

What was surprising was that nobody from Comcast upper management got involved, and that Croce, spurned, did a 180 and left.

This suggests Croce had tired of his place, or actually wanted to leave, or misread Snider, or all of the above.

“Oh, no,” says Croce, “if I wanted to leave, I would have just left....

“I’m a fan who happened to have the opportunity to create a deal to have part-ownership of a team, and then to go in and work the team, work it so that it was cool again--and then give it back to the fans! And walk away. I can do something else!

“So yeah, I could easily walk away. But I didn’t want to walk away. I wanted to still keep my hand in it, but at the same time, create something even bigger with the Comcast Spectacor entity....

“Talking with Ed Snider over several meetings, he talked about succession. We talked about an opportunity. So I went for it.”

Croce didn’t think he misunderstood Snider, but he says, in retrospect, he might have. “I thought succession meant, OK, he loves living in Montecito [where Snider has a winter home], and he loved what I did, so let’s go.”

So, Croce went.

Inevitably, a great lament arose, and all concerned were asked for their reactions.

Brown, who is nothing if not candid, said he loved Croce but quarreled with the notion he and Iverson must now be headed for splitsville, adding he had always resented Croce’s involvement.

“He said I interfered,” Croce says. “I would say I interceded. Especially at the times he threatened to quit. I mean, doesn’t take much to get involved when your coach threatens to quit....

“Allen said it best--I helped, but it was truly up to them. It was up to Larry Brown and Allen Iverson to choose to like each other, to respect each other....

“I think they’ve grown to respect each other, to respect each other’s talent, whether it’s Larry Brown’s coaching genius or Allen Iverson’s playing genius. I really think over the time and especially during those four rounds of the playoffs, they really got to embrace each other.

“Will there be squabbles? Yes. I mean, this is a family and all families have run-ins and rumbles at times. But yes, they’re mature men and they’re geniuses.”

And they’ll have to work it out themselves.

His reputation made, his small fortune now a bigger one, Croce is trying TV commentary between book tours, speaking appearances, etc. He says he could even wind up running a team again.

Unfortunately for all concerned, boardroom politics being what they are, it’s not likely to be this one.

Baby Baby, Where

Did Their Love Go?

It’s not special to have guys hurt [who play], but I think the size of everybody’s heart, I mean, you can’t even measure.

--Aaron McKie

*

The way it was, however, wasn’t the way it was going to be, at least not at the start.

Among other problems--such as their revolving door--the 76ers had run themselves into the floor last season, requiring even more surgeries. Iverson, Snow and McKie weren’t back for opening night and instead of last season’s 10-0 start, they began this one 0-5 and are now 11-15.

Several other things didn’t work out, such as:

Hill opts out of his contract, seeking more money. The 76ers remember how he tanked in the NBA Finals so they trade him to Cleveland, hoping Traylor can be their power forward. Traylor, whose potential has barely been tapped, much less fulfilled, doesn’t get much closer in camp, leaving the intermittently available Geiger as the power forward, prompting them to think about the unthinkable:

Bringing Derrick Coleman back?

Coleman is not only notorious, everyone thought he’d burned his bridges in a previous stint before going onto even greater ignominy in Charlotte. But he’s a big body, has talent, Brown says they never had a problem and unlike last time, Coleman says he wants to there.

So the courageous Lynch goes to Charlotte in a three-way deal. Not that the Hornets are eager, but they pay the Golden State Warriors $500,000.

Now Coleman is averaging a solid 16 points and nine rebounds, Iverson, McKie and Snow are back and the 76ers look respectable, although they don’t defend with last season’s ferocity or show last season’s zeal.

Of course, few ever did.

“Just the fact that everyone cared that much,” Snow says. “Everybody wanted to win, by any means necessary. That’s what you try to preach, but not every team, or every player believes that.

“We had a team that did. We’ve always spoken about how this team’s different. This team’s sincere in how they feel about each other and the way they approach the game and that’s not evident on every team in this league.

“You have that, you want to keep it.”

You misplace it, you’re going to miss it.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The New 76ers

A major reason the 76ers are faltering is they have only five key players remaining from last season’s team (*injured):

2001-02 STARTERS

D. Mutombo

Matt Harpring

Tyrone Hill

Allen Iverson

Eric Snow

BENCH

Aaron McKie

Raja Bell

Corie Blount

Damone Brown

Vonteego Cummings

Samuel Dalembert

Michael Ruffin

Speedy Claxton*

Alvin Jones*

*

2000-01 STARTERS

D. Mutombo

George Lynch

Derrick Coleman

Allen Iverson

Eric Snow

BENCH

Aaron McKie

Raja Bell

Rodney Buford

Matt Geiger

Jumaine Jones

Todd MacCulloch

Kevin Ollie