Evidently, Andre Iguodala has made quite an impression on 76ers coach Jim O'Brien. Enough of an impression, in fact, to win a spot in the 76ers starting lineup in his rookie season. Not only has he been given the starting spot, he has been given the spot over two-time All-Star Glenn Robinson.

"The team that we're starting (in the preseason against Utah) is the team that we would start if we were playing our first game today," said O'Brien before the Sixers game against Utah on Tuesday night. And that is Allen (Iverson at the one), Aaron (McKie) at the two, Andre at the three, Kenny (Thomas) and Marc Jackson (in the front court). That is our starting team right now."

Iguodala starting over Robinson isn't the only surprise in that list. Followers of the Sixers were expecting to see Samuel Dalembert and Willie Green start as well entering the season. While everybody is still battling for a place in the starting rotation at the start of an 82 game season, the change will be larger for Robinson than for the others. In 679 career games, Robinson has started 668 of them. After being selected first overall in the 1994 NBA draft, he has averaged 20.8 points per game for his career and was an all-star in 2000 and 2001. Some have wondered how Robinson, who was not present at Tuesday's game because of a family matter, has responded to finding out that he will be regularly coming off the bench for the fist time in his career.

"Glenn took it about as good as any NBA player has ever taken news that he was not going to be in the starting lineup," said O'Brien. "He said, 'You make the decisions, I respect what I'm doing here. That's fine. If I have to come off the bench that's what I'll do.' I just had a tremendous amount of respect for the professional way that he handled the situation."

As the Sixers have altered their expected line-up entering the 2004-05 season, especially with Allen Iverson starting at point guard, the decision to start Iguodala ahead of Robinson was more of a matter of match-ups rather than individual performances.

"It's not necessarily a situation where you only look at one player versus another player. Clearly, Allen is a guy that is gonna play a lot of minutes for us, and we have to have a wing player that can go up against the (Andrei) Kirilenkos, the Richard Jeffersons, the Paul Pierces, and the Tracy McGradys of the NBA. And I think that the guy that is going to be able to do that best is our rookie Andre."

In his first game since learning that he would become the regular starter, Iguodala had his most significant playing time, putting in 31 minutes on the court and finishing with 10 points.

"Glenn's just such a tremendous help to me," said Iguodala after helping to defeat Utah 97-86. "You know we compete, but also he's teaching me a lot of different things. With that 20 point average over his career, he's helped me a lot as far as how to score, how to get open, how to get to the hole. He's just been a great help to me at practice."

O'Brien expressed that the decision to go with Jackson and McKie instead of Dalembert and Green was a matter of experience and maturity. He voiced that Green's play throughout this preseason has in no way lost him the starting job, and that he is still able to contend for that spot in the line-up.

"I said to Willy that there is nothing that he has done that would not tell me that he's the player that I talked about this summer. He needs to get the starting job, and he needs to battle Aaron, and Aaron needs to not relinquish it easily. Certainly it has a lot to do with the maturity that Aaron and Marc have, and the experience that they have that sees them in the starting lineup at this point in time."

O'Brien expressed faith in his team that, no matter when they get into the game, they'll play at the level of Sixers basketball that they have been practicing all preseason.

When Iguodala was asked whether he would play better starting or coming off the bench, he responded by saying, "I play better when I'm on the floor. I'm gonna be out there and I'm gonna produce."