FanHouse Billy King

Billy King was fired on Tuesday; will Maurice Cheeks make it to the end of the week? We'll have to wait and see, because on his first day on the job, new Sixers president Ed Stefanski gave no indication what other changes might be in store aside from telling reporters he's "evaluating top to bottom. From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Cheeks, who is in the final season of his contract, told reporters that while he had talked to Stefanski only briefly, he received no assurance that his job was safe.

"I don't have an answer to why it happened. That's not my position," Cheeks said, when asked about King's firing.

"It happened, and now we have to move on. The only thing I can do is try to go out there every day and control what I can control, and that's trying to get our team better. That's basically all I can do."

The fact that Cheeks is in the last year of his contract makes me think he's probably not long for the Sixers. The Sixers have absolutely no chance of doing anything this year, so the coaching staff's primary obligation should be to prepare the team for the future.

But as an impending free agent, Cheeks knows there's a good chance he'll be looking for work next summer, whether he stays on board with the Sixers for the rest of the season or not. Will his emphasis be winning a few extra games now or developing the roster for the next guy to take over? Unless he gets an enthusiastic vote of confidence in the form of an extension, I think it's only natural and probably unavoidable that his priorities will be slightly different, which might prompt Stefanski to make a change.

Billy King's reign of terror as 76ers team president will end in Philadelphia later today, according to the Inquirer's David Aldridge. He'll be replaced by current Nets GM Ed Stefanski, who is expected to sign a mulityear deal today.

I can't remember the last time a team poached a front office executive from a division rival in-season, but I'm guessing Nets president Rod Thorn allowed the move because it's probably Stefanski's dream job: not only is it a promotion, but it's also a homecoming as he grew up near Philly and played college ball at Penn. Plus, and it'd be naive to think this wasn't also a factor, it should be years before the Sixers are even close to being a factor in the Atlantic.

I don't think many fans will regret seeing King leave, although they may resent it didn't happen sooner. From Enrico at The 700 Level:

My problem with all of this: you trust the guy enough to trade away Allen Iverson, a move that will undoubtedly shape your franchise for the foreseeable future, then you fire him less than a year later.

Not only that, it would have been nice to have a competent basketball mind running the draft, which the Sixers absolutely botched despite having four picks. Another question that still needs to be addressed is Maurice Cheeks' job security, as well as what role (if any) Larry Brown, one of King's confidants, will retain with the team. I'm guessing Stefanski will hold off on making any drastic changes for the time being, but once he gets his bearings anything could happen.

Someone stole the real Billy King and installed a robot in disguise who is spewing the following heretical clause:

"Just to spend money, to say we spent it isn't the course we want to go."

Blasphemous!

More worrisome revelations from the Philadelphia Inquirer's Marc Narducci: the Sixers, should they not move a muscle the next 12 months, could be $10 million under the cap next summer. A Billy King team, under the cap. Of course, Andre Iguodala is due an extension in the coming months which coincedentally should tie up about $8-9 million of that. And King favorites Louis Williams and Shavlik Randolph will be unrestricted free agents next summer, so that cap space is shot all to hell.

... which means the Billy King we know and love is safe. He's just flirting with sanity, that's all. He'll be back to completely unreasonable, err -- normal soon.