Sixers Win; Jeff Carter; L.J. Smith

The Sixers beat the Kazaam-less Miami Heat by a score of 101-84. Andre Iguodala had 25 to lead the Sixers to go along with Andre Miller's 21 points and 7 assists. Honestly, Miami is a rotting corpse of a franchise in every sense of the word. Dwyane Wade should call A.I. for some ideas on getting traded out of that situation.

The real story of the night was focused around the Rodney Carney-Dwyane Wade dunk tete-a-tete, that saw both men throw down some fantastic dunks over the other one. Wade got dunked on first and obviously didn't care for the experience much as he drew a technical foul for taunting after dunking over Carney. The 700level.com has all the video.

Jeff Carter Trade Rumors

Rumors out of the Canadian Press (specifically Darren Dreger on tsn.ca) have Jeff Carter as one of the top 10 tradeable commodities in the NHL as the trade deadline approaches (it's on February 26th).

I sort of agree with Dreger; I would not be surprised if Carter was traded if only because the organization has already made long term commitments to both Danny Briere and Mike Richards, who will be your top 2 centermen for the next 5 years (and longer in Richards' case). Carter would actually be better off moving to wing, but he has shunned this move in the past for various reasons. Carter is not a natural playmaker at center and his shot would be just deadly off of the wing, but for whatever reason, he's been unable to make the move wing. As a matter of fact, the ill-fated Kyle Calder move was expressly made for Jeff Carter's benefit; Calder is known to be a very good passer for a wing and the thought was that Calder and Carter would develop some chemistry (which never happened).

The Flyers need help on defense, in my opinion, and Jeff Carter could be the piece of the puzzle which could bring someone like Brian Campbell or Dan Boyle (Note: The Flyers would have to throw something else in for either of these two d-men). Rob Blake would be a nice addition, but he's hurt.

Eagles Franchise L.J. Smith

The Eagles placed the franchise tag on TE L. J. Smith yesterday, and in all likelihood, will keep the TE for one more year.

I have no problem with bringing Smith back for another year; he's not a bad player and there really isn't much out there in the free agent market to replace him. Potential FA Dallas Clark will almost assuredly be back with Indy as Peyton Manning's security blanket. Next year, Brent Celek should be more than ready to take over the starting TE role.

The funniest thing I've heard is from L. J. Smith's agent; who stated that the tagging of Smith as a franchise player "verifies he's one of the top players at his position."

You could make the case that he's not even the best TE in the NFC East, let alone in the NFC. As a matter of fact, he's probably the worst TE in the NFC East if you look at it objectively. I would rank TE's in the NFC East as follows:

1.) Jason Witten
2.) Chris Cooley
3.) Jeremy Shockey/Kevin Boss
4.) LJ Smith/Brent Celek

This is a win-win deal all around; the Birds don't have to worry about the position for this year and Smith will get one more chance to stay healthy and prove himself so he can get the long term contract that he wants.