Philadelphia 76ers

The Philadelphia 76ers play in the Atlantic Division of the NBA's Eastern Conference. Founded in 1946 as the Syracuse Nationals, the Sixers are the oldest franchise in the NBA.

The Nationals moved to Philadelphia in 1963, just a year after the Philadelphia Warriors abandoned Philly to move to San Francisco. The Nationals would become the 76ers and the 76ers would go on to have an interesting history. They boast the worst team in NBA History with the record 9-73 in 1972/73 and just six years prior to that, they put out arguably the best team in NBA History, in the 1966/67 team that went 68-13 and went on to win the NBA Championship.

The 76ers have won two championships, one in 1966/67 with Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer, Billy Cunningham, Chet Walker, and Lucious Jackson; and the other in 1982/83 with the MVP of the league, Moses Malone, Julius Erving, Maurice Cheeks, and sharp-shooting Andrew Toney, this team would go through the NBA Playoffs recording just one loss.

Throughout the franchise's illustrious history, the Sixers are one of the marquee clubs in the NBA. With stars such as Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, and Allen Iverson, the Sixers have always been an entertaining, successful basketball team.http://www.nba.com/sixers/history/index.html

The big talking point from 2009 and most likely, many years to come, was the lack of play from star power forward, Elton Brand. The 76ers aquired Brand from the Los Angeles Clippers for a 5 year, $79.795 million dollar contract in July 2008.. This move was meant to push the mediocre 76ers over the edge, and let them have a deep run in the playoffs, in a comparitively weak, Eastern Conference.

Although they didn't sign Brand in 2009, the 76ers were just hoping it was taking Brand a while to fit in. Unfortunately, Brand continued his mediocre play throughout 2009 that he had shown at the tail end of 2008, and although the 76ers made the playoffs, there was only a one game improvement on the previous year, prior to Brand.

When you sign someone to a max contract, you expect them to win at least five-ten games by themselves, not giving a one game improvement. The big disappointment to the 76ers is that they are tied to Brand's contract through to 2013, and therefore, this makes it nigh on impossible to sign any of the much vaunted free agent class of 2010 (Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, Dirk Nowitzki, Carlos Boozer, etc).

The 76ers acquired Julius Erving in 1976. After several seasons of falling just short of a NBA Championship, the team picked up Moses Malone in 1982. They would go on to win 65 games that season, as well as the franchise's third NBA Championship in 1983.

Philly's next big star was Charles Barkley, who arrived in 1984. Barkley enjoyed many successful years with the Sixers and became a crowd favorite. However, Barkley was traded to the Phoenix Suns in 1992 after the Sixers missed the playoffs for only the second time since he was drafted.

After several down years, Allen Iverson was drafted in 1996 and soon started a revival of the team. Iverson would lead the Sixers to the NBA Finals in 2001. The 76ers were defeated by the Los Angeles Lakers in five games after winning the first of the series.