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Traveling on Their Stomachs Efthimios Rentzias surveys the fare at the team meal after shootaround. • More photos from Detroit The old cliché that an army travels on its stomach can easily be applied to the Sixers travel party. When the small force of players, coaches, staff and front office personnel invades a hotel for a day and a half, one of the most important items on the agenda is the team meal. Allen Lumpkin, the team’s director of travel and team services, coordinates the team meal with the hotel. “I try to keep it simple,” Lumpkin said. “I somehow try to make everybody happy. If it was up to the players, we would have more fried food and junk food. But I try to keep it as healthy as possible. A lot of fruit, a lot salad, and a lot of sandwich type food.” Lumpkin is wary of foods that might be a problem for the players, like spicy foods. Of course the ultimate worry is that the food might make a player sick. “I avoid anything that can give those guys a case of food poising,” Lumpkin said. “Kobe (Bryant) last year and Richard Jefferson this year got some food poisoning. So you try to be careful what they eat.” When the Sixers returned from shootaround in preparation for Game 5 against Detroit, they had the “usual” choice of salad, fresh fruit, a deli tray, chicken fingers, hamburgers, broiled chicken, rice, bacon and eggs, breakfast potatoes, and cereal to name some of the items. “These guys are like creatures of habit,” Lumpkin said. “They like the same food all the time. That’s what I try to do.” On the road following practice or shootaround, when the team returns to the hotel, the players can eat brunch together or make themselves a boxed lunch to bring to their rooms. When the team is coming off the first game of back-to-back set on the road, the coaches will hold a breakfast meeting where the Sixers will watch film and eat breakfast together. For Lumpkin, the one nice luxury of the regular season is that he knows the schedule well in advance to work with the hotels in planning the menu and the meeting space. During the playoffs, things can get a little more complex. When the team returned from shootaround, they were met in the lobby by a convention of 450 women in bonnets attending a “Sweet Dreams” function and fundraiser. The team had no choice but to walk through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd en route to their lunch. “It’s hit or miss in the playoffs since you don’t know when you are coming back or if you are coming back,” Lumpkin said. “Meeting space was a problem (after shootaround). This event had been on hold for a year.” When all was said and done on this day, the players finished their meals and worked their way back through the packed lobby before heading to their rooms to rest up for the game.