The 76ers Have A Winning Record (!)

At the start of the season, Kyle Korver was on the cover of the team’s media guide, Hip-Hop the rabbit mascot was on billboards (he still is) and Billy King was the GM. The 76ers have since even waived the suave European they traded Korver for.

Last night, the 76ers erased an 11-point lead with a 19-0 run in the fourth quarter against the Boston Celtics and beat the best team in the NBA, 95-90. Andre Iguodala scored 10 straight for the 76ers in the run; Boston didn’t score for almost seven minutes. After starting 18-30, the 76ers have gone 17 18-5 to climb above .500.

2008 has so far featured Eli Manning leading a game-winning drive in the Super Bowl, and now the 76ers winning 17 out of 22 games. I could have gotten better odds betting on Fan Man coming back to life and crashing into the Super Bowl.

After the jump, a sick Andre Iguodala steal and dunk.

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76ers To Get Punk’d By Jazz Tonight

Over the long weekend the 76ers traded away Kyle “Ashton Kutcher” Korver to the Utah Jazz for the much less attractive Gordon Giricek and a first-round draft pick, who could end up being a cute guy but who knows.

And, all of a sudden, whoops, Kyle Korver leads the Jazz to a win over the red-hot Portland Trail Blazers. The 6-6 Giricek is from Croatia and is only on the Sixers because he has an expiring contract, which to an NBA team is like gold to Ron Paul. Expiring contracts free up cap space for the following season; the 76ers hope to make runs at several high level free agents this offseason, all of whom will turn them down.

Last year, as you may remember, the 76ers were supposed to tank after trading away Allen Iverson and they’d maybe get Greg Oden or Kevin Durant. They ended up winning too many games to get a high pick but not enough to get a playoff spot, of course, but this year they’re 14-17 and actually not all that bad, even though they’re frustrating to watch.

Kyle Korver is expected to score 24 tonight to beat the 76ers.

Apocalypse Philadelphia: Kyle Korver

Sign of Apocalypse Philadelphia No. 3:

The Kyle Korver bobblehead, free at tonight’s 76ers game for the first 5,000 kids.

It Has Hair! Kyle Korver Bobblehead Night, Courtesy of Chevrolet, Set for Jan. 18 [Sixers.com]

Basketball players: They’re just like us!

I’m a big fan of Sixers guard Kyle Korver. He’s a great shooter, he came from a small college, he reminds me of Ashton Kutcher — hm, this is probably a knock on him, actually — and he’s one fo the young guys on the 76ers who could be a fan favorite for years to come.

And, after reading Michael Klein’s column in today’s Inquirer, I like him even more. For a promotional item for the soon-to-be-at-the Spectrum “Incredibles on Ice,” they asked local athletes who their childhood heroes were. And they got the usual responses: the Lone Ranger, the Hulk, parents. Boring.

Kyle Korver selected the same hero I had when I was little:

We got a kick out of 76ers forward Kyle Korver’s idea of a childhood hero: Zack Morris. Yes, Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s character on the early ’90s sitcom Saved by the Bell — “because he got to date Kelly Kapowski.”

Yeah! And he dated Stacey Carosi!

Sports heroes’ heroes [Inky, last item]