“We don’t have a ‘go-to’ guy,” Sixers fan Dwayne Herbor explained during his standard drunken post game analysis on the subway. “Hell, we don’t even have an ‘angry second-in-command’ guy. I’d settle for a ‘shows flashes of brilliance, but then leaves a loaded gun in his locker’ guy. Hey, have you seen my kids? One of them’s got asthma or leukemia or something.”

Truly, there has not been a heavy-hitting Sixers star since Allen Iverson, and in this new NBA season, the Sixers have asked young 2010 second round draft pick Evan Turner to step into the role by next Friday.

Turner has taken a bench role since joining the team, slowly acclimating himself with professional play. However, the Sixers feel the time for him to evolve into an elite, impossibly-talented franchise icon begins now.

“I’ll be honest, I have plays drawn up that begin with Evan stealing the ball from Kobe Bryant and end with him slamming a flaming basketball in the net, like in NBA Jam,” Sixers head coach Doug Collins admits. “Some guys say it’s a little too specific to start a play that involves a certain player on another team, but what if Kobe is traded tomorrow? Then who’s going to look like a genius?”

Some worry that it may be a bit too much pressure to put on their young player, but those people have been quick to be labeled “cowards” and “nonbelievers,” and removed from the organization.

Turner was called into the office of Sixers owner Adam Aron on Tuesday for a “critical meeting on team objectives.” The second year guard was the sole player invited and appeared extremely nervous.

Upon exiting, Turner appeared “…crushed, as if the weight of several worlds had just been placed on his young shoulders,” explained one front office insider. “Any hint of youthful exuberance was completely gone. His eyes were so dead I almost called an ambulance.”

“We did it! We shook up the world! We shook up the world!” said a champagne-covered Andre Iguodala after the Sixers were eliminated from the playoffs on Wednesday. “You grow up watching teams win playoff games and you hope that one day that could be you out there hoisting the game ball in front of your home crowd. No one thought we would even get this far, but here we are, baby! We shook up the world!”

Sixers head coach Doug Collins said Friday that while the team exceeded any and all expectations during the dream 2010-11 season, he fully expects the young core group of players to capture an Eastern Conference semifinal win next season.

“I know this is setting the bar pretty high, but I think we’re ready to take the next step and become a slightly above average team next year,” Collins said.

“I accept full responsibility for what went down on Sunday,” Lil Wayne, aka Weezy, said during a Tuesday press conference. “I should have been more aware of the affect my rhymes have on the outcome of NBA games. In the future, I promise to be more careful.”

Of the Sixers’ 36 losses this season, Lil Wayne’s silky flow and taunt rhymes have accounted for 35 of them, while the team’s poor play could only account for a single loss to the Cavaliers back in November.

“We gave the team several chances to clean up broadcasts last year and not subject viewers to so much Andre Iguodala, but we saw no change and eventually had to pull the plug,” said FCC chairman Julius Genachowski. “Last month, we re-visited the idea of letting them back on TV and we’re happy to announce they are in full compliance with basic standards of entertainment.”

While the FCC has given the OK for viewers to tune into the Sixers, they issued a warning to the team that playoff hockey and basic Phillies Spring Training news could force another ban on broadcasts.

But, is that fair?

It seems too easy to say that, after seven years, Iguodala just isn’t the superstar player we originally thought he could be and that the Sixers would be better off without him.

The issue no one seems to want to address is that Iguodala could very well be one of the most talented players in NBA history, whose elite-level basketball skills are being misused and wasted in Philadelphia.

At 6’6″, Iguodala is the same height as one Michael Jeffrey Jordan, who was, by my estimate, the greatest basketball player ever. Fortunately for Jordan, he didn’t have to spend one minute of his career playing for the Sixers, so his career path wasn’t choked and beaten before it even began as was the case with Iguodala.

According to many projections, Iguodala could average as many as 90 points per game with 70 rebounds, 45 assists, 30 steals and 40 earth-shattering dunks if he played with any other team in the league. Other, more conservative estimates have him averaging only 70 points per game, but you get the picture.

It may be time to end the Iguodala experiment and allow his talent to flow freely with another NBA team, like the Timberwolves or maybe the Warriors. It is not too late for the Sixers to right the ship and become a respectable franchise and for Iguodala to smash record after record on the way to making some other team trillions upon trillions of dollars by employing the future greatest player in NBA history.

It has become painfully obvious that Iguodala will not work in Philadelphia, but the world deserves to see the forward’s true talent, and if that means having to trade him to another team that will automatically become the greatest team in NBA history for years to come, then so be it.

“To find a team this bad in position to make the playoffs, you’d have to go back almost 12 months,” NBA commissioner David Stern said of the Sixers. “Just to give you some perspective, LeBron was still with the Cavs and, if you can believe it, Evan Turner was still in college the last time this happened.”

The Pacers are 1 1/2 games ahead of the Sixers as the seventh seed in the conference with a 14-18 record and if both teams end up making the playoffs, they could become the worst duo to play in the postseason since 2009.

A source browsing the site first reported the deal via Twitter with the message “on sixersshop.com…thinkin about gettin a hat.” The Sixers later confirmed the deal was in place after receiving an alert that someone had finally added an item to their cart.

The Sixers are confident that the deal will be finalized soon, but are also reportedly shopping a replica Evan Turner jersey to anyone that wants one.

“My sources tell me that the Sixers are willing to go as far as killing Iguodala if it meant that Carmelo would be a Sixer,” ESPN’s Mark Stein said on Wednesday. “The Nuggets would also receive actual players from the Sixers and a possible draft pick, but the death of Iguodala seems to be the centerpiece of the deal.”

The Nuggets have yet to respond to the snuff-and-trade deal, but Sixers have reportedly contacted the other 28 NBA teams with a similar offer to maim Iguodala in exchange for any player at all.

Though cheering for draft picks is a staple among non-Philly sports fans, Philly fans have historically berated athletes on draft day. However, that custom came to an end when Turner was selected with the second overall pick and greeted with warm applause by fans, marking the first such embrace by fans in Philadelphia sports history.

The most notable case of deplorable behavior by Philly fans on draft day was during the 1999 NFL draft when Donovan McNabb was booed unmercifully as he was selected with the Eagles’ second overall pick. It was widely speculated that Eagles fans were booing the organization for not selecting Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams, but later reports confirmed that Philly fans are the scum of the earth and want to boo everyone at all times.

In a less publicized case, Allen Iverson was booed off the stage as he was selected with the first overall pick by the 76ers in 1996. Cole Hamels, the Phillies first-round selection in the 2002 MLB draft, was also booed by a throng of fans at his home in San Diego, CA as he sat in his living room with family and friends. Altogether, some 2,622 athletes have been booed by crazed Philadelphia sports fans over the years.

According to a report probably published somewhere, one rogue fan was heard booing while Turner’s name was announced during the draft, which was, according to the report, “yet another black eye for Philadelphia sports fans.”

The machine, which will make decisions at random, will provide the Sixers with more consistency than the team had under Ed Stefanski.

“Those ping-pong balls have done more for our franchise in one hour than Ed did in three years, so this was an easy decision,” said Sixers owner Ed Snider. “We have no idea how the machine works, but we’re just glad it’s on our side now.”

The Sixers also announced that Stefanski will be given a new title as the guy that pulls the ping-pong balls from the new GM.