Yourrrrr Philadelphia 76ers open up a new campaign tonight against the Toronto Raptors (game time has 
been moved to 6pm due to the potential Phillies Game 5 with high hopes and great expectations coming off last season’s playoff run and off-season moves.
A Brand New Era starts tonight as free agent signee Elton Brand makes his debut. Brand brings great optimism to the run and gun Sixers off their playoff run last year. “Anything less then the 2nd round this season is a disappointment” Brand recently said. Look for Band’s low post ability, more importantly combined with his defensive rebounding to spark the up tempo Sixers into even quicker outlets and fast breaks. Throughout the season the Sixers will look to wear out teams with running style offense and intense defense.
The Sixers are one of the handful of up and coming teams in the not so JV Eastern Conference anymore. They are in an Atlantic Division with the defending world champion Boston Celtics, and Toronto Raptor team that also was in last years playoffs, and added all-star center Jermaine O’Neal to form a nice front court tandem with power forward Chris Bosh.
This team has a nice mix of veteran leaders at the right positions, point guard Andre Miller is a floor general, with emerging young starts at other positions. I feel the Sixers can live up to the pre-season expectations they’ve set for themselves. While I do not see them beating out the defending champs for the division title, I think the Sixers will be in the 4,5 seed battle all season, advance to the conference semifinals losing to the repeat champion Celtics in a 7 game epic.
Final Record: 48-34, 2nd Atlantic Division, 5 seed in East
Philly Sports Blog | 215 Sports 
This is the first fairly optimistic year the 76ers have endured since the years with AI. The Sixers have put together a nice team and finally get a low post threat in Brand. It’s yet to be determined whether Brand’s past injuries are in the past and whether he is healthy enough to carry the Sixers into the playoffs. If the Sixers can get a consistent outside shooter to help with Brand and Iggy driving, they will surely give teams fits. I think 5th place in the East is a good assessment of what this team can do.
Well dropping the first game to the Raptors is not the right foot to start off on.
Hopefully we get this together as we have a fairly easy schedule to begin the season
Yah we need to shape up now and forget about the game against the Raptors. Those things can sometimes get stuck in the head and the self confidence goes down.
Thaddeus is looking like an ALL STAR.