FanHouse BillyKing

Of all the ousted NBA general managers who get their names tossed into vacancy rumors, Billy King would seem to be the most unlikely. King's oeuvre is known well; Kenny Thomas, Willie Green, Samuel Dalembert and Chris Webber are just some of the names to keep in mind.

That doesn't stop Frank Isola of the New York Daily News from tossing King's hat into the Knicks sweepstakes.

King, who is working as an analyst for NBA TV and ESPN, could be a strong candidate to replace [Isiah] Thomas in New York. He and Garden president Steve Mills are good friends.

If by "strong" you mean "virtually indistinguishable from Isiah except for the whole sexual harrassment thing," then yes, King could be a "strong" candidate.

Also rumored to be interesting in the job are Kevin McHale, Elgin Baylor, and Billy Knight.

I don't want to overblow things here, but...

• The 76ers have won four straight, including a win over the Rockets and a pair against the rival Knicks.
• Samuel Dalembert was a block away from triple-double against Minnesota Wednesday night.
• Andre Miller's averaging more than 10 assists/game over the last five.
• Jason Smith and Thaddeus Young are in David Thorpe's top 20 rookie rankings.

Was Billy King some sort of vicious hex on the shoulders of Maurice Cheeks and his charges? Does Ed Stefanski come bearing antibiotics? Can this team actually make it to the playoffs this year? Eh, who cares. At least the (few) fans following the Sixers have something to cheer for, like this one-day-old windmill from Andre Iguodala.



If nothing else, Philly deserves to be watched... but which puts this version one step below the must-watch Allen Iverson Sixers.

The reasons behind Billy King's dismissal in Philadelphia were hardly questioned; the timing has been seen as odd, though. Some (myself included) wonder why it didn't happen when King's final experiment (Allen Iverson + Chris Webber) blew up masterfully; others (such as King himself) wondered why the boss wasn't able to carry out his rebuilding plan. Sports Illustrated's Ian Thomsen (via Sixers Shots) might have an answer.

One league source reports that team chairman Ed Snider was pushing for Larry Brown to reclaim control of the Sixers from coach Maurice Cheeks. Some within the organization sensed that the coup would happen before the end of the season.

But the rest of the Comcast-Spectacor ownership board didn't like the highly expensive idea of restoring Brown to power, which is why Comcast president Peter Luukko appears to have been granted new control over the 76ers. It was Luukko who made the initial call that wrested Stefanski from the Nets.

Essentially, Larry Brown planned a coup attempt through Snider, but Snider's fellow board members didn't want to pay/deal with L.B. again, so Luukko took over to keep L.B. out of the picture while (hopefully) restoring order to the front office? Wow. Months ago, I noted Brown had improbably become something of an NBA leper. I had no idea it was this bad, where the mere possibility of Brown taking over costs other people their jobs.

Thomsen said sources believe Brown will be a coach somewhere else by next fall. But seriously: Who's going to hire him? He's divisive, high-maintenance, and probably $10 million a year. Chicago? Atlanta? Washington? I don't see it. And does this mean anything for Maurice Cheeks, who doesn't seem very confident? I'd guess he'll stay on through the season, so long as he doesn't step in Ed Stefanski's path. But he should probably load up the inkjet and spell check that resume just in case.

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.

The sheer comedy with which Billy King botched Philadelphia's huge draft keeps getting more laughable. I might remind you that after taking Thaddeus Young at #12 and Jason Smith at #20 (both decent picks), King traded the team's #30 and #38 picks for the #42 and the #58 picks in separate deals. ... I'd write a joke, but seriously? Look at that.

And now, to make matters uglier, the Sixers cut the #42 pick, Derrick Byars. Philadelphia obviously didn't need the pick. (Never mind Byars is a good player.) So they paid Byars some amount to hang around during summer league and training camp. After they drafted him, they reportedly asked him to play overseas (keeping a spot and some salary open while the team retained his NBA rights). He declined. You know what the funny thing is? The #30 pick King traded to Portland for Byars became... Petteri Koponen. And what's Koponen doing this year (and likely next)? Playing overseas. Costing the Blazers nothing. Taking up no roster spot on a deep young team. All those things Philadelphia needed out of one of its late picks. A 19-year-old Finnish guard and a 23-year-old from Tennessee -- hmm, I wonder who will be more willing to play overseas? What a conundrum!

I said it in March, and I'll repeat it today: You can have all the young studs and hope and potential cap room and bright future in the universe. If Billy King is running your team, it means nothing.

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.