"Ideally, Andre Iguodala should be the kind of player that the region should embrace.

He plays hard, he plays hurt, and he never makes excuses.

Yet Iguodala is quickly falling into the same category as Scott Rolen, who played for the Phillies from 1997-2002, before essentially getting booed out of town.

Coming into this season, Iguodala had missed just six games in his first six seasons. This season, he played through a wrist injury and Achilles injury in the first half of the season. He missed 12 games with those injuries when he could have easily missed many more.

Then through the final two months of the season, Iguodala played through right knee tendinitis similar to the injury the Phillies' Chase Utley has dealt with this season.

Utley still hasn't played in a game for the Phillies.

Iguodala's injury needed at least a month to heal fully. He sat out one game in March and the final two games of the regular season.

That was it.

He never complained, even though it clearly affected his play on the court. Iguodala still guarded the other team's top perimeter players, including both LeBron James and Dwyane Wade during the first round of the playoffs.

For the most part, he did a respectable job, at least better than the job the Celtics are currently doing on those two Heat stars.

But Iguodala's scoring was down this season, partly because Sixers coach Doug Collins asked him to concentrate on defense and to serve as a "point forward" on offense, and partly because of the injuries that Iguodala refused to use as an excuse."