PHILADELPHIA – While the New York Knicks continue to flounder, and the New Jersey Nets keep underachieving, another NBA team playing 100 miles away is slowly gaining respect.
 
The Philadelphia 76ers had won four straight games as of a December 12th victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves, boosting the Sixers to 9-13 and just one game out of eighth place in the Eastern Conference. Talking about an NBA playoff race in December is like talking about a baseball pennant race in mid-May, but at least there is hope for the 76ers, considered by all major preview magazines to be a long-term rebuilding project. Maybe they still are, but lately, they haven’t played that way. They’ve played like they expect to win, and the results have been positive.
 
“We knew from the get-go we were that type of team, we were just waiting to prove it,” Philadelphia center Samuel Dalembert said after the 76ers won their third straight by defeating the visiting Houston Rockets on December 10th. “We just need to continue to have an inside and outside game.” 
 
“We have a lot of confidence in ourselves,” Sixers forward Kyle Korver said while icing his left knee after the win over Houston. “We’ve been the only ones believing in us … and because of that, we’ve really developed a bond I think that a lot of teams don’t have. And with that bond comes confidence. At the same time, you’ve got to go out and win the games to really get that confidence.”
 
Of the Sixers’ four consecutive wins through December 12th, three were by double-digit margins. That has to help the team’s confidence even more, but the players know there’s still so much work to be done.
 
“We’re just taking one game at a time,” 76ers point guard Andre Miller said after his team beat the Rockets. “We can’t really dwell on the things that are going on.”
 
“We haven’t really earned anything yet,” Korver said. “We don’t want to talk playoffs. We don’t want to talk ‘contending’ or whatever yet because we haven’t really proved anything yet.”
 
Still, there is reason for excitement on South Broad Street. When swingman Andre Iguodala’s circus dunk gave the Sixers a 74-46 lead with nearly 20 minutes still to play in the December 10th game against Houston, it electrified the crowd at Philadelphia’s Wachovia Center. And it seemed to be a microcosm of how the 76ers are waking up a fan base that had watched the 2001 Eastern Conference champions plummet to the NBA Lottery ranks. That game against the Rockets drew 12,551 people, very impressive considering it was played on a rainy Monday night in the middle of holiday shopping season.
 
The 76ers have been coached since 2005 by Maurice Cheeks, the starting point guard on Philadelphia’s 1983 NBA championship team. The Sixers were a playoff contender as recently as the 2005-06 season, but a late swoon kept them from qualifying.
 
Last season, the 76ers jettisoned star players Allen Iverson and Chris Webber, officially earning the rebuilding tag. Since then, however, a mostly young Sixers team has shown plenty of fight.
 
“We’re still building,” Korver said, “but we have a lot of good pieces here. And I don’t think the guys have gotten enough credit for how good they have played going back to the second half of last year. But that’s O.K.  We’re totally fine with that. We’ll keep on playing under the radar.”

Attention casual NBA fans. There’s a good center who you probably don’t know about. He is Samuel Dalembert of the Philadelphia 76ers.
 
The Haitian-born Dalembert at 6’11” is small compared to many NBA centers, but he takes on Yao Ming and Shaquille O’Neal, and is able to stay right with them. On Monday December 10th at Philadelphia’s Wachovia Center, Dalembert looked like a child guarding a college player when he matched up against Yao. But Dalembert didn’t play like one. He scrapped and scraped and yes, contained the Houston Rockets’ 7’6” giant. Though Dalembert scored only eight points to Yao’s 12, he held Yao to 3-for-11 shooting (38 percent) from the field. Dalembert out rebounded Yao 13-9, and had two blocked shots, while Yao had none.
 
“When you’re a defender, when you’re a guy like me who likes to play defense, you have to take up a challenge every night,” Dalembert said after the Sixers won their third straight game by defeating Houston, 100-88. “That’s what makes you a great defender. And over time, you prove yourself and people are going to give you some respect.”
 
76ers forward Kyle Korver thinks Dalembert is one of the most underrated centers in the league.
 
“Totally,” Korver said after the win over Houston. “It’s always funny, because in shoot-arounds, we’ll kind of talk about a dominant big man on the other side, how we’re going to double-team (him). Sam is like ‘No, no, no. I got him, I got him.’ And he’s really starting to prove that he really can guard him.”
 
Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on May 10, 1981, Dalembert first played basketball a bit more north than that tropical location – in Montreal, Canada. Dalembert played college ball in the United States for Seton Hall, and his sister Melissa would later follow him to the Big East. She is currently a sophomore center on the South Florida University women’s basketball team.
 
Her big brother “Sam” moved on to the NBA in 2001, when the 76ers – at the time, the defending Eastern Conference champions – drafted him 26th overall.
 
During his pro career, Dalembert has emerged as a shot-blocker, a skill that at times has manifested itself as overaggressive defense. In the 2005-06 season, Dalembert led the NBA in goaltending, and also fouled out of nine games. This season, he has become even more of a shot-blocking force; as of the Sixers’ December 10th win over Houston, Dalembert’s career shot-blocking average was 1.9 per game, but he was averaging 2.2 blocks per game up to that point this season.
 
Contributing to Dalembert’s ability to block shots is his tremendous wingspan. “He’s so long,” Korver said. “I mean, he has the incredible ability of waiting until they shoot the ball, and then jumping … He jumps so late and he’s still able to get (blocks).”
 
Dalembert says whether he’s defending against Yao, or Shaq, or Eddy Curry, or any other center, his mindset is the same.
 
“You don’t want them to get too deep inside … because a lot of times you’ll foul,” Dalembert said. “So you have to limit their comfort zone … I’ve got to just make them make tough decisions.”
 
Dalembert has been solid offensively, too. Though his career scoring average was 8.1 through December 10th, he was averaging 10.9 points per game this season.
 
Near the end of last summer, Dalembert faced some minor adversity. In late August, after competing for the Canadian national team in the FIBA (Federation Internationale de Basketball Amateur) Americas Championships, he suffered from swelling in his left foot. In September, the Sixers announced Dalembert had been diagnosed with a stress fracture in that foot, and he began to wear a walking boot. Dalembert has since recovered, and through December 10th, he had started all 21 of Philadelphia’s games this season.   
 
Also last summer, Dalembert became a Canadian citizen, and next summer you may see him competing for an Olympic medal with the Canadian men’s basketball team, if that team can succeed in the World Olympic Qualifying Tournament.
 
For now, though, Dalembert will try to keep the 76ers in the NBA playoff chase, while always working to improve his own abilities.
 
“It’s not an easy game,” Dalembert said. “You just have to stay focused and you have to utilize everything you have.”