Sixers Notes

by Jeff Clark on Dec 5, 2007 8:48 AM EST in NBA Articles

The Sixers made news yesterday by sacking their Team President and GM Billy King and hiring Ed Stefanski (former Nets Asst. GM) in his place. David Aldridge summed it up by saying, "Somebody had to pay for the decline of the Sixers."

You can't say King didn't try everything, unless you're forgetting the four-team deal that would have sent Iverson to Detroit in 2000 if Matt Geiger had agreed to waive his trade kicker or how close King came to getting now-dominant forward Carlos Boozer and young guard Randy Foye in one fell swoop on draft night 2006.
But those deals fell through, and King didn't have a BFF and former teammate with a franchise player like Celtics GM Danny Ainge did in his Minnesota counterpart, Kevin McHale. So King got the ax, and Ainge got Garnett, and Ainge will be executive of the year next spring. That's life in the big city.

Jon Burkett from Passion and Pride has been busy getting his blog-house in order.

I don’t know about Sean and AG, but I didn’t go to bed. I worked straight through the night. Like preparing your house for important guests, I cleaned up the look of the site so that the landing page looked more concise, posts were interlinked and contact information with references was provided as a footer.

Jon is also impressed with Stefanski:

Ed Stefanski was directly responsible for helping to build the Nets Eastern Conference title teams of 2002 and 2003. In more recent memory, he drafted Sean Williams over Jason Smith and selected UConn teammates Marcus Williams and Josh Boone. He had a hand in drafting Nenad Krstic and Richard Jefferson, as well as trading for and resigning Vince Carter. And he signed Cliff Robinson about 13 times, give or take 10-12…Since he also has history with the Big5 schools and played for Penn. I wonder if he would be interested in trying to bring in another former Penn guy, Dave Wohl, who was with Boston last year under Doc Rivers?…Here’s another simple comparison for you. In the 2001 draft, Stefanski (director of scouting under Thorn) helped engineer the trade of the 7th pick (Seton Hall and Roman Catholic’s Eddie Griffin) to the Rockets in exchange for the 13th pick (Richard Jefferson), 19th pick (Jason Collins), and 24th pick (Brandon Armstrong). Gee, wasn’t Billy King trying to do the opposite with the 12th, 21st and 30th picks this year? Difference is that Stefanski gets what he wants accomplished, where Billy is left consoling himself that he did the best he could. In the end, the best wasn’t good enough…

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Comments

philly’s gain is nj’s loss.

by nazzbo on Dec 5, 2007 10:09 AM EST reply actions

King’s firing is bad news for the Celtics. It means one less idiot running an Atlantic Division team.

by Brickowski on Dec 5, 2007 10:28 AM EST reply actions

No kidding. It’s amazing to me how the owner of an NBA franchise can sit back and watch an incompetent like King run his franchise into the ground. We’re talking about a business with a value in the hundreds of millions of dollars and they entrust it to a fool like King.

Too bad the fans can’t file a class action suit against ownership for wrecking their team. At least they’ve finally done something to finally change the situation which is more than the Knicks have done.

by Kuberski33 on Dec 5, 2007 10:49 AM EST reply actions

King did some good work in Phily. That shouldn’t be forgotten.

He had a few bad years recently but looked like he was getting it back on track. If they wanted to fire him for his recent performance? Fine. But the timing is diabolical. Ownership should have canned him before the draft and given their new GM (Stefanski would have taken the job then too) a whole summer to fill out his vision for the club.

I’m not sure about Stefanski. I think he’ll be a good GM and bring the club back to respectability but I’m not sure he has the ingenuity to do anything special. Seems a dull choice to me. Time will tell.

by Who on Dec 5, 2007 11:13 AM EST reply actions

Comparing King with Ainge? Yeah that’s fair. King gave out bad contracts left and right; the Dalembert contract alone is killing them. The Sixers are still paying for guys not even on the roster anymore (Webber, Mckie, etc), not to mention the several coaches King went through. Please, Ainge at his worst is/was a far better GM than King.

by Gino on Dec 5, 2007 11:20 AM EST reply actions

Richard Jefferson is a great player. Getting Vince Carter? Please.

by The Real Large James on Dec 5, 2007 12:03 PM EST reply actions

What complete screwed the Sixers were the terrible contracts given out after 2000 to players like Eric Snow, Aaron McKie and Kenny Thomas. Then they turned some of that salaey into Webber, which compounded the problem, as did Dalembert’s deal, which was even worse than the ridiculous deal Ainge gave to Mark Blount.

The Glenn Robinson and Keith Van Horn acquisitions didn’t work out, and the Iverson deal did not bring back a single good young player. The only good things King did for 7 years were to draft Iguodala and Korver (a lucky 2nd round pick).

by Brickowski on Dec 5, 2007 12:40 PM EST reply actions

The Webber trade was very good.

He traded Brian Skinner, Corliss Williamson and Kenny Thomas for Webber. C-Webb gave them a 20-10 season and was going for 12 and 8 til Phily decided to he wasn’t in their future.

Thomas, Williamson and Skinner made a combined 19 mil last season on those contracts he gave up for Webber. Webber didn’t compound any problems.

King also kept his expiring Glenn Robinson deal off the table in the Webber trade and avoided giving any youth up. It was a good trade. Unfortunetly for King he wasn’t able to trade Robinson’s deal into another top player, so he had to take Mashburn’s insurance cheque, additional time to trade the expiring deal and Rodney Rogers who was exactly the type of player Jim O Brien wanted.

Billy King did make horrible decisions on the Dalembert, Green, Snow and McKie contracts. His biggest failing was keeping Allen Iverson … that lad is worth 10-15 turnovers a game by himself with his ball dominating, poor shot selection and poor decision making and is complete inability to play effectively alongside another scorer (and yes that is how I characterize his play with Melo)

by Who on Dec 5, 2007 1:12 PM EST reply actions

Oh and Kenny Thomas. That contract was the worst I’ve seen in the last 10 years. I don’t know what fantasy land he was in when he handed that deal out.

The Willie Green one isn’t awful. 17 over 5 years is Scal money for a 9th man. I wouldn’t have done it … but it doesn’t stop them from doing anything and he’s still an interesting player.

by Who on Dec 5, 2007 1:16 PM EST reply actions

I’m sick of Aldridge and his Celtic hating. You don’t get credit for trying, you get credit for succeeding. At least Billy King kept Iverson away from Ainge. We’ve got that to be thankful for.

by jlafleur on Dec 5, 2007 3:39 PM EST reply actions

AI would have been wrong for the C’s but he is a great player. I don’t agree with you WHO. Putting up those points at his size in the NBA, he plays hard. He isn’t perfect but he’s damn good.
I agree with Brickowski, it’s good for the C’s to have Isaiah and Billy King stay right where they are.

by Wildblu1 on Dec 5, 2007 4:45 PM EST reply actions

The article mentions Dave Wohl, who is now working with DA in the front office. I have a hunch that Wohl may be in line for DA’s job when DA decides to call it quits.

by TrueGreen on Dec 5, 2007 5:37 PM EST reply actions