Is Elton the Right Brand for Philadelphia?

In his heyday, Elton Brand was a dominant scorer from the high and low post, a voracious rebounder, and as his career progressed, a solid defender both on the ball and from the weakside.

However, injuries and age have left Brand a shell of his former self, leaving the Philadelphia 76ers on the hook for Brand's gargantuan contract he signed during the 2008 offseason.

Let’s use Philadelphia’s latest game against the Knicks, a 92-88 loss, to see if Elton is still the right brand, or if the Sixers will need to go with another product at power forward.

Offense

Elton’s main task was to set up at either high post—usually the left—and set high screens for Philadelphia’s high screen/rolls or Princeton action before making a target of himself at the elbow.

At times, if the resulting action led to Brand’s side of the court clearing out, he’d drop into the mid-post and post up, and he usually fanned to the baseline on wing screens.

Surprisingly, Brand’s screens were rather flimsy, even against the pint-sized Knicks, but he’s being paid to do more than just set screens.

From the elbow, Brand was lethal against the smaller Knicks defending him, usually Al Harrington or Bill Walker.

Brand had no troubles either shooting over the Knicks on high post jumpers—4-of-7 FG—but he was always able to back his defender down, take his right hand into the middle of the paint, and hit short jumpers to his heart’s content.

Brand even displayed his veteran’s guile when, after lazily dribbling right to left across the free throw line and lulling Harrington to street, he pivoted, and sprinted as hard as he could to the bucket for a layup and foul with Harrington caught completely by surprise.

Indeed, Brand always went to his right hand from the high post, and was never overplayed to his left.

Not surprisingly then with him being featured in Philadelphia’s offense, he scored a cool 17 points in the first half.

However, when Brand worked in the low post, his habit of unilaterally going to his right hand resulted in a travel and a badly missed layup with the Knicks overplaying that side.

Brand grabbed an offensive rebound but had no lift on his putback follow, finding his shot blocked below the rim.

He also displayed no agility whatsoever, often lumbering his way down the court well after his other four teammates had taken their spots in Philly’s offense.

Even his aforementioned drive and layup was more a matter of the Knicks being completely astonished than of Brand making an elite basketball move.

Still, Brand drew double teams in the high post, and made appropriate out passes to shooters who rarely knocked down their shots—2 AST.

For some reason, Eddie Jordan only played Brand roughly 12 minutes in the second half and Brand was hardly involved despite a stellar first half. Instead, underwhelming youngster Jason Smith picked up 12 minutes of mostly ineffective playing time.

Defense

Brand labored enough on the defensive end to at least be adequate, but he doesn’t move well enough to be an impact defensive player.

Mostly matched up against Harrington, Brand maintained enough distance to New York’s shooters to not get burned from deep, though he did give too much room to Bill Walker, allowing a first-half corner three.

Brand lurched his body enough to not let Harrington get more than a half step past him, and used his long arms to contest his shots, even blocking one first-half drive.

Brand was also much too long, strong, and wide to allow Harrington any damage from the post.

In this regard, Brand can still hold his own as a straight-up defender.

Brand tried to show on high screens with some success, and was able to get back to his assigned man in time to prevent radical defensive rotations.

His help defense was smart. He closed out hard on Walker outside the three-point line with the shot clock running down, forcing Walker to take an extra dribble before failing to beat the clock, and was almost always in the right place at the right time.

Also, Brand finished off playing defense by ALWAYS boxing out when a shot went up in the air.

However, if Brand were defending the perimeter, he’d make little effort to chase down a rebound from the outside. This led to a number of Knicks offensive rebounds.

Brand was also slow to react in transition, and dragged himself getting up and down the court.

On numerous Knicks attacks on the basket, Brand wasn’t around to provide weak side help.

Indeed, Brand has gone from being one of the most explosive frontcourt players in basketball to dragging himself like a paperweight.

His strength, guile, and soft touch still allow him to produce, but he’ll never come close to putting up the production to justify his contract.

At first glance, the Sixers have what they need to mitigate Brand’s weaknesses. They have an athletic frontline to challenge attacks on the rim, and an abundance of team speed.

However, the Sixers don’t have the shooters to complement Brand’s ability to draw doubles, and don’t have coordinated halfcourt offensive players.

Philadelphia’s best bet is to run opponents out in transition, yet having Brand on the court just mucks the Sixers up.

There’s no easy solution to what to do with Brand, but as long as he, Samuel Dalembert, and Andre Iguodala are making the most money on the team, the Sixers will never have enough firepower to be relevant at the end of seasons.