Sixers lack veteran guidance, Lou Williams says

He is two franchises and almost three years removed from his seven-year career with the 76ers, but Toronto guard Lou Williams still keeps an eye on the team that made him the 45th overall pick in the 2005 draft.

Williams is averaging 15.1 points per game and once again is proving to be one of the best reserves in the NBA - he led the 76ers in scoring as a reserve in his final season here. He said the biggest problem with the deliberately bad 76ers (8-34) is that there simply are no true veterans to guide the young team.

"It's like the blind leading the blind because they don't have veterans on the roster," Williams said Thursday after the Raptors' practice on Temple's campus. "You don't know what's around the corner; you don't know what's coming next.

"There are just a whole lot of things - like how hard it is to play with the all-star break right around the corner - that you have to know to be successful in this league. They probably still don't know that every team is going to try to come in and whip their [behinds] because they are still trying to learn the league, so it's very tough on them."

The Raptors (27-15) sit atop the Atlantic Division even though they have struggled lately. After beginning the season 24-7, they have tailed off somewhat.

Toronto reached the midpoint of its season with a 27-14 record. Thus far, Williams has made the Raptors better than they were last season, when they won a franchise-record 48 games.

He was acquired in June from Atlanta along with Lucas Nogueira in exchange for Philly native John Salmons. Williams is third on the team in scoring behind Philadelphia native Kyle Lowry (19.8 ppg.) and DeMar DeRozan (18.2).

"I'm very comfortable in the system here," Williams said. "It fits my style."

His one regret about his time in Philadelphia, which opted to not re-sign him after the 2011-12 season, was that the Sixers eventually broke up that team completely.

"I felt like we were headed in the right direction," Williams said of the Sixers, which fell one game shy of reaching the Eastern Conference finals that season. "I still don't think that was a great decision, but it was what it was at the time."

Lowry, a former Cardinal Dougherty and Villanova star, will start for the Eastern Conference in the NBA All-Star Game. The game will be played Feb. 15 at Madison Square Garden in New York.

After Jerami Grant picked up eight blocks against the Knicks, the Sixers now have three rookies (Grant, K.J. McDaniels, and Nerlens Noel) averaging at least a block a game this season.