PHILADELPHIA – For nearly five decades, Jerry Colangelo has been pro basketball’s version of Annie Sullivan: a miracle worker. No, he never taught a blind and deaf Helen Keller how to “read.” But he did take over the expansion Phoenix Suns in the late 1960s and build them into a legitimate NBA power, twice winning the Western Conference and coming close to a championship with a team that was almost always respectable. That made him an institution in the Valley of the
In the classic war movie Apocalypse Now, Marlon Brando plays a decorated American colonel who has abandoned the war in Vietnam to set up his own dystopian military conclave in Cambodia that features random missions, animal sacrifices and human beheadings. Martin Sheen plays an American captain sent on a classified mission to assassinate the colonel. When Sheen arrives at the camp, he is asked if he believes the colonel’s methods are unsound. And Sheen replies, “I don’t see any method at all,
One of these days, the Philadelphia 76ers will win a game. And once of these years, Sam Hinkie will find a better-that-decent player who is not 6-foot-10 or taller. And in the meantime, folks in Philadelphia will suffer. Our message to them comes in the form of an acronym — H-O-P-E. It stands for “hang on, pain ends.” Monday night’s loss to the Dallas Mavericks in another winnable game that got away moved the Sixers to 0-11 on the season and 0-21 since
Once again, to the dismay of GM Sam Hinkie and the rest of the folks running the Philadelphia 76ers,.the NBA will insist the franchise play all 82 games this season rather than just skip straight to the only part they seem to care about: the draft lottery. After all, no team has seemed to make less of what goes on between the lines from late October through mid-April than the team that has openly flaunted the rules, believing it is the
Editor’s note: This story originally was published in February, when our Jon Marks had the chance to spend some time with Ron Pollack, the son of legendary statistician Harvey Pollack, who died Tuesday at the age of 93. PHILADELPHIA – The vigil begins early. Ron Pollack arrives at Hahnemann Hospital at 8 o’clock every morning – just in time for doctor’s rounds – and heads immediately for the Surgical Trauma Intensive Care Unit. He brings his I-Pad and other electronic
Why do doubts remain about the Atlanta Hawks? The Hawks are 40-8. They have lost twice since Thanksgiving. They have beaten Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Dallas, the LA Clippers, Cleveland again, Portland, the Clippers again, Memphis, Washington, Toronto, Chicago again, Oklahoma City and Portland again. The Hawks just completed the best undefeated month in NBA history, going 17-0 in January. They have won 19 consecutive games, the fifth-longest streak in league annals. They have won 12 straight road games. What seems to be the
The Sixers are a top-five League Pass option right now. Until they win a game, they’re practically must-see, just for the historical importance of it all. And then even after they win, any time they’re close is worth flipping over to, because a loss to the Sixers will have more impact on a team’s playoff chances than a win over anybody. That said, it’s got to be a bad time to be a loyal Sixer fan right now, considering both the current
PHILADELPHIA – Oh, to be a bullfrog along the Schuylkill River on Monday, listening in while Gregg Popovich and Brett Brown walked and talked a few hours before Pop’s world champion Spurs – minus Tim Duncan and Tony Parker – kept Brown’s 76ers winless with a 109-103 victory. “He made me walk with him for an hour and a half today,’’ laughed an unusually amiable Popovich of his longtime assistant and good friend, who’s having a bit of a rough go