FanHouse EdStefanski

Philadelphia sat in strong position, needing a point guard in a deep point guard draft. Andre Miller is a free agent, and Louis Williams is an Eddie House clone. A few potential lottery picks fell down to the 76ers at No. 17: Ed Stefanski had his choice of Ty Lawson, Jeff Teague and UCLA's Jrue Holiday, a player once rumored to go as high as No. 4. The Sixers took Holiday, the youngest (and most unproven) of the trio.

Holiday is basically unformed right now. He has a good left hand, a good right hand. His shooting stroke isn't broken. He has length and athleticism and strength. He's a great prospect ... but he's going to need a bit of time (he's only 18). Philly needs a point guard now. Passing on Lawson in particular is surprising, considering the Sixers expect to contend soon, given the massive payroll and Elton Brand's ticking clock.

I don't necessarily begrudge Doug Collins for using his magnificent platform to seek out what would (apparently) be a more fulfilling job. After all, senators run for president midterm. Blatantly treating your job as a stepping stone is the American way. The idea itself has lost all negative stigma to the masses.

But there's something about the way in which Collins campaigns for coaching jobs while working playoff games on TNT that bugs me. We saw it with the Chicago vacancy last spring, and we're seeing it now with the Philadelphia opening. The problem for me is that Collins seems to enjoy creating the whispers, the rumors, the controversy. Last night's Lakers-Rockets game was a fantastic example.

We have a second NBA coaching vacancy. Tony DiLeo, the 76er executive who took over for deposed Maurice Cheeks early this season, told Philadelphia GM Ed Stefanski he wanted to give up his coaching duties, according to Kate Fagan of the Philadelphia Inquirer (via The 700 Level). DiLeo will return to the front office.

The Kings had been the only coach-less franchise, and they'd taken their sweet time filling the void. Sacramento's first interviews -- Eddie Jordan and Paul Westphal -- have been scheduled for this week. Jordan has been considered a potential candidate for the Sixers job; E.J. was New Jersey's top assistant for several years of Stefanski's tenure there working under Rod Thorn. Doug Collins has also been mentioned profusely, as he was with the Chicago opening last spring.

Marc Stein of ESPN.com reports that while the 76ers indicated Tony DiLeo would be running the show for the remainder of the year following the firing of Mo Cheeks as coach, there's a possibility the team could bring in Eddie Jordan to take over soon.

Jordan has history with Philadelphia GM Ed Stefanski: Jordan was a top assistant in New Jersey under Byron Scott and Lawrence Frank before taking the helm of the Wiz while Stefanski worked under N.J. GM Rod Thorn.

Jordan, the first coach canned this season, is an offensive-minded fellow. Philadelphia's major problem is ... offense. I think we all see where this is headed. But will the Sixers make the move during the season, and is Jordan ready to get back under the burning, abusive magnifying glass? Here's Ivan Carter of the Washington Post:

Like Sam Mitchell's dismissal from Toronto's helm, today's sacking of Maurice Cheeks in Philadelphia had been overdue from a logical perspective. Cheeks hasn't done much with the 76ers since coming over three years ago. Further, Cheeks is not new GM Ed Stefanski's so-called "guy." Last season's glorified run to the seventh seed has been overblown quite a bit, and Cheeks hasn't been able to fit Elton Brand into the attack after a month this year. Cheeks is a class act and by all reports a good motivator.

But as Henry Abbott noted this week, Cheeks isn't seen as a master tactician. Quite the opposite actually. In today's NBA, we're moving towards more Xs-and-Os guys running the show. Most head coaches played in the league, but we've seen more "smart" guys than big names these days. This is not to say Cheeks is not very smart; it's to say that without his playing history in Philadelphia, it's unlikely he would have been Philadelphia's coach (or Portland's before that).

Instead, we now have guys like Lawrence Frank and Mike Brown. I mean, Patrick Ewing has had remarkable trouble getting an interview for a head coaching job, while names like Jay Triano and Ed Tapscott grace the sidelines. Big names don't get jobs any more, and it seems apparent Cheeks won't have his choice of lead gigs this summer.

ESPN reports Tony DiLeo, an assistant general manager under Stefanski, will be the interim for the rest of the year. Why are teams afraid to hire a new coach midseason? There are plenty of good candidates available. I understand Scott Brooks sticking in Oklahoma City and Triano in Toronto -- these are longtime assistants who know the roster. But Tapscott hadn't coached in decades, and DiLeo's last coaching experience came in West Germany. In case the "West Germany" didn't clue you in, that was a long time ago.

When Ed Stefanski moved into Philly's front office last December, a lot of people figured it was just a matter of time before Mo Cheeks was handed his walking papers. After all, Cheeks was in the midst of the final year of his contract, and in this day and age of the salary cap and guaranteed contracts, the easiest way for a new GM to put his stamp on an organization is hand-picking a new coaching staff.

But instead of giving Cheeks the axe, Stefanski gave him a one-year extension in February. And after watching Cheeks orchestrate a surprising second-half run, in which the Sixers went from being 12 games under .500 to not only securing the seventh seed but also pushing the favored Pistons to six games, Stefanski rewarded Cheeks with another extension today. (How many years? Stay tuned -- exact details should come out after this afternoon's press conference.)

After Philly made a big splash earlier this summer by giving truckloads of money to Elton Brand and Andre Iguodala, I'm guessing today's news will barely register on the radar of most NBA fans. But in my opinion, locking Cheeks up should prove to be just as (if not more) instrumental to Philly's re-emergence as one of the top teams in the East.

He's enjoys teaching the game as much as he does coaching it, which is absolutely vital considering Philly will be relying on the development of high-ceiling youngsters like Louis Williams, Thaddeus Young and Marreese Speights as much as the veteran leadership of Brand, Iguodala and Andre Miller.

The Sixers landed their big name free agent in Elton Brand, resigned their "star" Andre Iguodala to more money than God, and made their smart signing with Louis Williams. Now they've capped off a very busy offseason with the veteran locker room guy signing, inking Donyell Marshall to a minimum salary contract.

Marshall, at 35, isn't going to be getting any significant playing time, just as he hasn't in his last several stops, including Chicago, Cleveland and Seattle. With OKC looking forward, they agreed to a buyout, which allowed Marshall to sign with the Sixers. While Marshall doesn't have much to provide a loaded Sixers squad on the floor, he is known to be the quintessential locker room leader, and provides experience and guidance for a notably young team.

To look at the Sixers up and down now that Ed Stefanski has completed the polishing of the roster, it's clear that it's been nothing but upgrades for Philadelphia. Stefanski has managed to add significant talent without taking on bad contracts in trades, hasn't gone for any unnecessary homeruns, and has resigned a very popular player that, despite a lot of misgivings, definitely gets it done in the boxscore. Let's go ahead and pencil in Stefanski for Executive of the Year next year. Sure it's early, but the Sixers have gone from the surprising plucky team to a legitimate force in the East under him. And he didn't even need Kevin McHale selling the farm for a couple of chickens to do it.

Anyway, here's hoping Marshall doesn't have anymore 'wardrobe malfunctions' in Philly.

Sixers GM Ed Stefanski can put a big check mark on his summer to-do list after signing 21-year-old guard Louis Williams to a five-year deal today. Exact terms of the deal are not yet known, but Williams' agent sounded pleased when confirming the news to the Philadelphia Daily News:

"It's a good deal for Louis," Merle Scott, Williams' agent, told the Daily News. "It gives him a chance to grow with a team that's building and allows him to stay with the team he came into the league with."

It'll be interesting to see what kind of deal Williams was able to get -- he's yet to start a single game in his career but is considered a vital piece of the team's backcourt of the future. In fact, it's conceivable he could be running the point full-time by the end of the year if the team decides to move Andre Miller's expiring $10 million contract at the deadline.

While locking up Williams is good for the team's future, the team still needs to figure out how to get Andre Iguodala under contract if they want to compete this year. What will it take to get it done? Looking at the contracts that Emeka Okafor and Luol Deng (two of Iggy's classmates from the 2004 draft) just signed, Philly wouldn't be negotiating in good faith if they didn't open the discussion at six years and $71 million.

Via The700Level, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports a rumored deal between Philadelphia and Minnesota has gone down, sending Beautiful Calvin Booth, Rodney Carney and a pick to the Wolves for nothing but a $2.8 million trade exception. The real prize for Philly general manager Ed Stefanski: even more salary cap breathing room to chase someone like Elton Brand or Josh Smith. Here's Woj:

Getting Carney and Booth off the cap gives the Sixers the chance to offer a starting salary of approximately $14 million a season.

If Atlanta wasn't going to match a contract starting at $11 million for Smith (a disputed rumor), will they even be able to play a straight face if the Sixers offer something like a flat $13 million per year, five-year contract? Or, Philadelphia could go big in year one -- $14.75 million is the max for a four-year veteran, but Stefanski expects to have $14 million as stated above -- and taper the contract down to $12 million by the final year.

For Brand, the 76ers could now offer about five years, $80 million ... which is right in the middle of the Clippers' ($70 million) and Warriors' ($90 million) offers. Watson wrote about the expanded interest in Brand last night; now, that interest has a feasible outlet.

While much chatter following Philadelphia's noble defeat at the hands of Detroit has focused on how much cash Andre Iguodala lost himself with a bad series, no one's much paying attention to the 76er front office's view on the matter. Ed Stefankski, Philly's general manager, talked about Iguodala's contract status with the Philadelphia Daily News's Phil Jasner earlier this week.

"I would say, 'Thank God they're restricted,' because we have no intention of not matching any offer from another team," Stefanski said.

Iguodala rejected an in-season extension offer of $57 million from Billy King, Stefanski's predecessor. Whether he can now command anything close to that remains to be seen. In any case, the Sixers will attempt to complete their business in free agency and the trade market before attempting to re-sign Iguodala or [Louis] Williams.

The "we have no intention of not matching any offer from another team" would seem to be a smoking gun, but I'm more interested in "the Sixer will attempt to complete their business in free agency and the trade market before attempting to re-sign Iguodala" part. Stefanksi's going after a big free agent before worrying about 'Dala.

Iguodala, therefore, is not the priority -- Elton Brand or Josh Smith or Antawn Jamison or Shawn Marion might be. Stefanski's protected, as 'Dala is restricted and Philly can spend whatever it takes to keep AI2. But there's a chance things could get in the way, that Stefanski could be chasing a power forward while someone else swoops in and offers Iguodala $60 million. If Stef manages to pry Smith from Atlanta, suppose ... does it even make sense to pay Iguodala (as Thaddeus Young and Andre Miller lick their chops)? When it comes down it, 'Dala is not going to be first in line for the payday here.

It's all smart on Stefanski's end -- this is the way things should be played. But it's got to be a bit of a wake-up call for 'Dala, the supposed franchise player. Philadelphia may very well be rebuilt by the time Andre's number is called.