‘Dr. Dino’ a.k.a. James Borbath from Dino Nation Blog, is a Broadcast Journalism Grad turned basketball blogger. He has worked as the publisher and writer of the Dino Nation Blog for almost 2 years. Dino Nation Blog is part of the sports federation of theScore.com. James also live blogs many NBA games for The Score.
The Philidelphia 76ers are expected to announce Monday that Eddie Jordan will be hired as the coach of their squad for the 2009/10 season. He has coached 518 games for a career record of 230-288(.444) . He has coached in 26 playoff games with only an 8-18 record(.308). Looking at the numbers it may not look that impressive. However when you consider that Jordan coached a Wizards squad that always had injury issues yet he still kept the team competitive until this last season, it’s not as bad as it may appear. This year he and the Wizards just ran out of steam and had a 1-10 start to the season. He had to deal with having his best player, Gilbert Arenas, out for the best part of the last few seasons. Let’s face it, Arenas has been more a blogger than baller for quite some time, and has been eating a huge amount of cap space in doing so. For what Eddie Jordan had to work with I think he did a great job during his time in Washington. There was talk he was in negotiations with Sacramento where he got his start as a head coach in the 96-97 season. He was not given a real chance only getting to coach one full season in 97-98 in which he was just 27-55.
He has a great offensive system and maybe he can figure out a way to use both Andre Iguodala and Elton Brand effectively together. That was something Mo Cheeks could not seem to do. I like Eddie Jordan so much that I considered him a good candidate for the team I cover the most, the Toronto Raptors. But the Raptors decided to bring back interim coach Jay Triano as he signed a 3 year deal a few weeks ago with the club. Jordan has been a coach that has been able to take teams that had injury issues and still lead them to the playoffs in the east. We will see how he does against the Triano, D’Antoni, Frank and Rivers teams. The Sixers heading into last year had big hopes of challenging Boston for being top dog in the Atlantic. They fell far short of that and a 6th seed and a first round exit to the Orlando Magic, the surprising Eastern Conference Champions, was not exactly what Philly fans had in mind. Philly is a tough town and let’s hope Eddie Jordan is given a chance to do his thing. I think if Brand can stay healthy, and Jordan is given a fair shot, the Sixers could be a better team for it.
