(AP)

The 76ers’ Arnett Moultrie could be cleared to resume basketball activity as early as Thanksgiving.

The second-year forward, who had surgery in September to repair the medial malleolus in his left ankle, has not participated in any of the preseason. This week, he shed his crutches in favor of a walking boot.

“Progress has been good,” Moultrie said Wednesday, before the Sixers hosted Miami in the season opener. “We’re in Week 5. By Week 8, I’ll be cleared to play and that’s around Thanksgiving. It’s up to me to get in shape from there.

As for when he can play again, initial reports on Moultrie said the 6-10 forward would be out until January.

“But hopefully it doesn’t take that long,” he said.

Moultrie averaged 3.7 points and 3.1 rebounds in 11.5 minutes per appearance last season as a rookie.

(AP)

The 76ers will hold a press conference Wednesday to officially announce the retirement of Allen Iverson.

Iverson spent parts of 12 seasons in a 14-season career with the Sixers. His legacy is not limited to those in Philadelphia, however. Earlier this week, Sixers coach Brett Brown commented on Iverson’s playing career:

Brown, on his best memory of Iverson:

“Philadelphia was my scout team for years and he was amongst the hardest people you had to scheme to guard because he could do it in so many ways. He is a great scorer, a great competitor. My most-vivid memory of him was when we were in the All-Star Game and I had the good fortune of coaching in (three) All-Star Games (in 2005, ’11 and ’13) with Pop and our staff. You go into a room and there’s 24 of the best players in the world in a small room and I actually had my son (Sam) with me, and I was thrilled to share that experience with him when he was very young. I look over and I see A.I. in a corner and I can’t believe physically, you know, he’s small. Small waist, but strong and cut. He’s small relative to the other great players. And I’m looking at him and to do what he did on a night-to-night basis and play with that toughness and get hit and get back up and have that fierceness in him with really a smaller type of body, he amazes me. That is one fierce competitor. For him to have the career he’s had in Philadelphia, I know the city is proud of him in what he’s accomplished. And having to guard him was a really, really hard assignment for the Spurs and scheming up with him was difficult if not impossible.”

Brown, on how to gameplan against Iverson:

“You had to guard him with a team. You had to put size on him with Bruce Bowen. Apples for apples, he could rise up quick and you couldn’t get to his shot. We opted to space him a little bit and put length on him with Bruce Bowen and show a real crowd around him where he wasn’t able to dance and rise up. You had to be there and crowd his space, take away his space, and maybe Timmy () or Fabricio (Oberto) or Rasho (Nesterovic) or long back in the day David (Robinson), with all of those bigger players there was a wall behind him. But I’ll tell you what – guarding him with anybody less than a full team, you had your hands full every night. He’s had big games against the Spurs and we were amongst the top defensive teams in the league. At times (against him), we couldn’t get it done.”

Duncan

(AP)

Wednesday night, Brett Brown gets introduced to life as an NBA head coach.

Training camp was nice. Preseason didn’t count. And the dais of an introductory press conference veiled the discomfort of the day-to-day job. Brown’s tenure as the 76ers’ head coach begins Wednesday night … against the same team that ended his tenure as an assistant coach in San Antonio.

When the Sixers host the Miami in the Heat’s backend of a back-to-back (they open the season tonight against Chicago), Brown will be facing the reigning two-time NBA champions. But Brown said there are no hard feelings. Not anymore, at least.

“Everybody knows the last time I saw them was a huge disappointment,” Brown said Tuesday, following the Sixers’ practice at PCOM. “Personally I feel like I’m in a different place now and the hangover, the residue of all of that still exists, not to the point where you think about it a lot.”

More important to Brown, than seeking any shred of revenge against Miami, is getting his team ready for what will undoubtedly be the first of many challenges this season. The Heat are the Heat and the Sixers are, well, the Sixers. They’re at different ends of the NBA spectrum, and one will offer a decent measuring stick for the other. (I’ll let you guess to which one I’m referring.)

“I think it’s the reality of what is the benchmark of our sport,” Brown said of playing the Heat. “Any time you can get a true guideline of where you stand as an individual or as a team, it’s an honest reflection of what we have to do if we aspire to get to where they are, along with the excitement of starting an NBA season.”

The Sixers will tip off against the Heat at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

(AP)

On the eve of the 76ers' season opener, here's my best attempt to handicap the NBA's major awards ... and a handful of predictions for the Sixers.

Keep in mind I'm having a little fun here, going out on a limb with a few of these. Let me know what you think in the comments:

Most Valuable Player: LeBron James, Miami

Rookie of the Year: Trey Burke, Utah

Defensive Player of the Year: LeBron James, Miami

Most Improved Player: Kawhi Leonard, San Antonio

Sixth Man of the Year: Jarrett Jack, Cleveland

Coach of the Year: Doc Rivers, LA Clippers

*          *          *

Eastern Conference Finals: Miami over Indiana, 4-2

Western Conference Finals: LA Clippers over San Antonio, 4-3

NBA Finals: Miami over LA Clippers, 4-0

*          *          *

Sixers' scoring leader: Evan Turner

Sixers' assists leader: Michael Carter-Williams

Sixers' rebounding leader: Thaddeus Young

Games played by Sixers rookie Nerlens Noel (pictured): 0
Sixers' regular-season record:14-68
Sixers' draft position in 2014 NBA draft: No. 2

(AP)

Khalif Wyatt is headed to China.

Four days after being waived by the 76ers, Wyatt took a one-year deal to play for Guangdong Southern, of the China Basketball Association, a source close to Wyatt confirmed.

Wyatt, the Temple standout who won Atlantic 10 Conference Player of the Year honors as a senior in 2012-13, played for the Sixers in the Orlando Pro Summer League and through the preseason before being cut last Friday. He had averaged 4.2 points per game in four exhibition appearances with the team.

A Norristown native, Wyatt had options stateside. A league source had said the Sixers were looking to keep Wyatt in the pipeline with the team's NBA D-League affiliate in Delaware.

(AP)

The 76ers have signed Brandon Davies to a contract, according to a league source, bringing the team’s opening-day roster to the league-max of 15 players.

Davies, a 6-9, 235-pound power forward, went undrafted out of Brigham Young. The Philadelphia-born Davies, who later moved to Provo, Utah, by an adoptive parent, had spent the preseason with the Los Angeles Clippers, averaging 3.4 points and 2.8 rebounds in 11 minutes per appearance across five games. The Clippers released Davies Oct. 21.

Davies, 22, averaged 17 points and eight rebounds as a senior at BYU.