Heat-76ers Summary

Best Player in the Series: Elton Brand. Certainly a surprising result here, given the series winner. But consider his game by game numbers: +2 (40 min) in Game 1, +1 (41 min) in Game 3, +10 (36 min) in Game 4, +3 (38 min) in Game 5. Honestly, a much smarter person than me will have to explain this, because according to popular wisdom, Elton Brand hasn't been a useful NBA player in 3 years. (Note: "popular" does not necessarily mean correct)

Worst Player in the Series: Mike Bibby. A defensive liability for several years, the floor spacing he was supposed to provide didn't really offset his utter uselessness against Jrue Holiday and Lou Williams. The eyeball test didn't lie; Big Z and Bibby were terrible in this series.

Jerome James Award: Thaddeus Young. Probably would have been easy to call out Lebron's seemingly irrelevant contributions based on plus/minus, particularly since the 76ers were consciously leaving Iggy on an island against him all series. But I'm focusing on Thad the Underwhelmer. Watching these games, it felt like everytime he got a rebound, or scored at all, the announcers fought over the right to gush all over him. Does his young talent seem to ooze potential, since he put up 11 and 6 in the series? Well, I actually preferred the 12 and 5 he averaged in a playoff series 2 years ago, while shooting a better percentage. I don't see the upside anymore... after 3 years in the league, you are what you are. Unless there's a leap to make in team chemistry or leadership (see: Zach Randolph, Chauncey Billups), this is who Thaddeus Young will probably be for the rest of his career: a tweener who runs the floor and rebounds well against 2nd units.