Collins and Turner can get the Sixers back on Track

It takes alot to build excitement for an NBA team coming off a 27 win season, but the Sixers are doing their best to repair the damage inflicted on this fanbase after the debacle put on the Wachovia Center.

From the top to the bottom, it was a brutal campaign for the Philadelphia 76ers. It started off well enough a year ago with a logo redesign reminding us of a simpler and better time for the franchise, it reminded us of Doctor J and Moses Malone and now we had Eddie Jordan, yikes.

It's not a secret that I wasn't a big fan of Eddie Jordan and it's easy to track the steep descent by this team last year directly to him. Jordan was the worst possible selection for this team and made it worse was that he was a personal pick by GM and friend Ed Stefanski.

It's tough to decipher just how much damage Jordan caused because it's easy to tie the bad record to him but he was responsible for so much more. He ruined the confidence of the team and couldn't instill the discipline that a team as young as the Sixers needs and thus his hands off approach splintered the locker room between players who followed the rules and the ones who didn't.

Jordan spent an entire season messing with the heads of his players and implementing rotations that had everyone wondering what was going on. Jordan openly criticized players following losses and wouldn't play $80 million dollar forward Elton Brand for long stretches at a time. 

Jordan was finally fired on April 14th and the Sixers were once again in the market for a new coach which will be their seventh coach in as many years.

The Sixers then decided on 58-year-old Doug Collins to be the 23rd coach in franchise history. Collins is a guy who is more famous for his color commentary than he is for his NBA coaching career.

I wasn't an immediate fan of the Collins hiring at first, but with each passing day I became more and more impressed with the former TNT analyst.

Whether it was taking a shot at his predecessor at his introductory press conference,

"Every year that I’ve coached, I’ve run almost different system because I’ve never had the same team. That’s what coaches have to do. They have to adjust and play to their different personnel," Collins said.

Or how genuinely excited about being back in Philadelphia and promoting competition and giving Andre Iguodala, a much needed confidence boost by realizing that he was probably affected the most by Jordan's turbulent season.

Collins went to Iguodala and told him what he can do to get this team back to the playoffs and he didn't do it by blowing smoke, he gave him working points.

He told Iguodala to become an All-NBA defender, try out for the national team since many of last summer's players won't be involved this time around because of contract negotiations. Make the Team USA roster and watch his game improve and then he'll enter the season ready to play like an all-star. And if he plays like an all-star, then this team will have a real shot of making the playoffs. Now that's motivation that Jordan failed to infuse at any point last season.

But Collins' biggest move as Sixers coach will be his handling of #2 pick Evan Turner, as it is pretty obvious that the hopes of the city dying for good basketball lie on a back court of the 21-year-old National Player of the Year and the 20-year-old point guard, Jrue Holiday. It's a big reason why there's a little buzz in the city for the Sixers again and if Collins handles those two and Iguodala the way I expect him to, Philadelphia could be a relevant basketball town again really soon.