Daily Onions: Mailing It In

Not to steal any thunder from Sports Guy's big announcement yesterday releasing more details about his new website, but Daily Onions is announcing a new addition to our site with Mailing It In. This will give readers the opportunity to email questions to Daily Onions, and every so often.....we'll answer them! What a novel idea. These questions can be basketball related, sports related, pop-culture related, really anything related. If we don't think we have a good enough answer, we'll bring someone in to help us out. Do you want to have your question answered by Daily Onions? Shoot us an email at jrsacks22@gmail.com or post in the comment section and we'll do our best to provide you the goods.

Our first question comes from Pittsburgh, PA. Brady asks:
"Daily Onions, which team has a brighter future, the Knicks or the 76ers?"

Thanks for the question, Brady....that's an interesting one, and one that appeals to many of our East coast readers due to their rooting interests in these teams. In fact, all NBA fans should have a liking in this question, especially with Chris Paul and Dwight Howard being eliminated from the playoffs last night, rumors of their whereabouts for next season will start swirling.

Back to the current players on these teams those. Let's start at the top. The Knicks obviously have the advantage in the "superstar" category with Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire. Both are perennial all-stars and both are legitimately top 20 players in the NBA right now. For the Sixers, their superstar would be......Bueller? Frye? Anyone.....anyone? Something d-o-o economics. Voodoo economics. Anyway, who is it? I guess you would say the closest thing is Andre Iguodala. In fact, let's start a new paragraph for Iggy.

Here are my thoughts on Iggy: One of the most athletic players in the league; One of the top lockdown perimeter defenders in the league; Not a consistent shooter at all; Has the ability to get to the rim, but often avoids contact and begs for calls; You don't feel confident when he has the ball in the final seconds and your team needs a bucket; He is the ideal #3 option for a top tier team in the league; He has the ability to put up a triple-double on any night (more of a 11-10-10 type of triple-double) because he does so much for you on the court. With all that said, I don't know if he should be in the Sixers future plans. As we saw last summer when he played with some NBA superstars on the World Championships squad, he'd be awesome if he were the third or fourth option on offense, and was a guy that could shutdown the opposing team's best player and do all the little things well for your team. The Sixers aren't good enough (yet) to have him play that role on this team, so they need him to do more and I'm not so sure that is a good thing. Oh, and I don't think Iguodala is good enough to "demand" a trade as he did earlier this season. I think its better off for both sides if they part ways this summer.

Future's bright for Holiday (Getty)

The Knicks have the edge in the superstar category, but I'll take the Sixers in the "young talent" category. Throughout the season and more recently the playoffs, I was impressed with the development of Jrue Holiday, Thaddeus Young, Jodie Meeks and I've always been a fan of Lou Williams. Throw in Evan Turner, who was the 2nd pick overall last year, even though I'm not sold on him ever being an All-Star in this league. Prove me wrong, ET. New York's young talent consists of Landry Fields, who showed his true rookie colors in the playoffs, and really hasn't been the same since the Carmelo trade. Honestly, I don't think Knicks fan should be banging on Lance in anyway because they basically were playing with house money. He was barely expected to make the team, but instead he turned out to be one of the best rookies in the league for 80% of the season. The Knicks other youngster that has a future is PG Toney Douglas, who did a nice job as a backup or fill-in for the injury prone Billups. He still has some ways to go before he isn't getting abused by Rondo anymore. As you can see, in our opinion, Holiday, Young, Meeks, Lou and ET > Fields and Douglas.

Let's head to the sidelines to see who has the better guy leading the way. I'll admit, I was wrong about Doug Collins. An old-school guy, with a heck of a basketball intelligence, I wasn't sure he'd be able to connect with this inexperienced and raw Sixers roster. He did. He cares about the players, he has them playing hard, and he has them all bought in to the system of playing both ends of the court and playing as a team. Dougie was a legit candidate for Coach of the Year this season. On the other side, you have Mike D'Antoni. He was great in Phoenix thanks to Steve Nash, but he has yet to find the player to lean on in New York. He's got two super-duper stars in Melo and Amare, with the potential of another one coming to NY in the near future (Paul, Howard?). Is his laid back approach to coaching the right fit for this collection of players? Probably not. The biggest predicament for the Knicks would be who could handle these big boys..........VAN GUNDY!!! HAAAAHAAA! (Sorry, that commercial is stuck in my head). Who knows if JVG will leave the booth and come back to coach, but I could see his return to MSG. Bottom line, I think D'Antoni is on the way out, and that is a good thing for the Knicks.

On the intangible side of things, I'm taking the Sixers. They play harder, they play as a team, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say they have the potential to be a poor man's Oklahoma City (stud Kevin Durant not included). Note, I said poor man's, so it's not THAT far fetched. I would like to stick up for the Knicks though. They had a lot of injuries and lots of roster changes this season, with a coach that doesn't really believe in practice (we talkin' bout PRACTIC), so its easy to see why there wasn't always a lot of continuity for the blue and orange.

So who has the brighter future? With the current roster, I'm taking the Sixers. There is more potential there and I like their cohesiveness. Insert Stephen A. Smith HOWEVER here. I do think that the Knicks have the potential to bring in a bigger name player in this off season or next off season, which could make them a top 4 team in the conference (assuming we have a season). The Sixers need some more talent/depth up front, and I doubt they'll get a top tier player at that position. That's fine though, they'll plug in the right guy who fits in with the culture that DC has created.

Am I Sixers fan? Yes. Was this answer slightly skewed towards the Sixers? Maybe, but I think we looked at both sides of the coin and were pretty honest with what each team's outlook is as of now. Did we mail it in while writing this post? Definitely not, so that means you should keep mailing in your questions!