Admit it, You Have No Idea Who I Am

The Sixers are completely mired in mediocrity. Sitting a game above five-hundred and still drawing a half-full arena nightly (although they nearly sold-out Saturday, which led to a fantastic conversation between a weary box-office cashier and a completely bewildered Hal Morra), they have now gone three straight without Allen and may be losing what little luster they already had. They don't play much defense and I still haven't figured out their O, but they're all we've got and all we're gonna have. So for those of you struggling to find reasons to tune in, I've put together a few ways to make the Sixers experience a little more palatable.

1. Get a couple friends and wager on which nobody will put up career numbers against our sieve defense. This season has been dominated by wildly random 7th and 8th men going for 28 in 30 minutes. Highlights have included:

Gordan Giricek's 23 on 9-17 shooting
Greg Ostertag's five offensive rebounds in a quarter
Mehmet Okur's 25-8-8 on 8-12
Boris Diaw's 14-13-11
Pat Garrity's 24 on 9-11 (including 2 three's to start O.T.)

Before you scoff at what you might consider a big name, think quickly about just how much basketball you watch, and try to understand that just because you know that Greg Ostertag is the greatest shot blocker in Kansas history does not mean that the average person could pick him off the street. Tag is a nobody, Pat Garrity is a nobody, and Boris Diaw is a nobody whose stock is rising.

2. Go on full Shavlik patrol. He's not getting much run lately, which means you as a fan need to pay even more attention to him. He's always the first man off the bench after a made basket or a timeout. If you don't know what he looks like- he's the big white guy that doesn't play, as opposed to the big white guy that shouldn't play (see Michael Bradley).

3. Drink.

4. Appreciate Iverson and don't take him for granted (you might have to hold off for a couple more nights, although I predict he'll be back for the Detroit game)

5. Wish there was a Super Bowl game worth getting excited about. Or at least one that didn't have the Seahawks in it.

6. Write haikus about a player that played 42 minutes combined in the month of January.