FanHouse MoCheeks

The one plus to Thursday's firing of Grizzlies coach Marc Iavaroni was the report that deposed 76ers coach Mo Cheeks would join Lionel Hollins in Memphis as an assistant. Cheeks, you'd assume, would try his hand at developing O.J. Mayo's point guard skills and fixing Mike Conley.

Phil Jasner of the Philadelphia Daily News reports that Cheeks will not join Hollins in Memphis, however.

The 76ers announced yesterday that Elton Brand will be sidelined for the next month. After leaving Wednesday's game with a dislocated shoulder, an MRI revealed that Brand suffered a fractured humeral head (the part of his arm bone that connects to his shoulder) as well as a torn labrum. As bad as it sounds, his injury doesn't appear to need surgery, which means he can begin rehabilitation immediately.

It'll be interesting to see how the Sixers respond to Brand's injury. He's been the team's leading scorer this year, but his presence in the lineup is also a big reason why the team hasn't been able to play at a faster pace, which in turn was one of the biggest reasons why Mo Cheeks was let go.

But with Brand on the sideline, this roster will look an awful lot like last year's squad, which got up and down the court in a hurry. Andre Iguodala will resume his role as the team's primary offensive threat, which can only help him snap out of his early-season funk. This team still needs another perimeter shooter, but if they're able to get easy buckets in transition and spend less time setting up half-court sets, that need is somewhat diminished for the moment.

Eventually this team will need to figure out a way to win with Brand, whether it's adjusting their style of play or adding another shooter to the lineup, but they have several weeks before they need to cross that bridge.

The 76ers fired Mo Cheeks over the weekend, but he was as gracious and classy as ever while saying goodbye in today's press conference, even going as far as saying he'd be open to returning to the team in another role. And really, should we have expected any less?

He may have coached for only three years and change, but he spent 11 years with the team as a player. That's his legacy in Philadelphia, not the fact that his team got off to a poor start in the first 23 games. From Kate Fagan of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

"Anytime you get let go it hurts, not being able to finish ... finish what we started. I really thought we had an opportunity to win."

"It does come down to having certain players who can do certain things. But it also comes down to the coach getting the certain players to do certain things."

When Mo Cheeks lost his job today, the Sixers reportedly named Tony DiLeo as the "permanent interim," or the head coach for the rest of the season. Similar distinctions were made in every other NBA sacking this season -- there will be no midseason hirings of Flip Saunders or Avery Johnson, apparently.

DiLeo, as we mentioned earlier, hasn't been so much as an NBA assistant coach in a decade. His only head coaching experience is at the European club level. He is a front office guy now, and front office guys don't typically have major success coaching NBA teams.

As Kevin Pelton notes, the season's young. Philadelphia, while disappointing, isn't out of it as is the case in Washington (who also put a front office guy -- Ed Tapscott -- in charge). The Sixers are only 1.5 games out of the playoffs, in fact. Unless DiLeo has some secret coaching skills brewing under the surface, Philadelphia is basically ignoring a playoff possibility in favor of player evaluation. (On DiLeo's repressed skills: the man was an assistant under some awful Sixer coaches. To my knowledge, he wasn't highly sought out by other teams nor did he get a look by Sixers brass as a candidate. That doesn't speak well to the presence of secret coaching skills.)

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.

Big things were expected from Andre Iguodala after he signed a six-year, $80 million contract this summer. Unfortunately, he's been slow out of the gate, averaging just 13 points on 39% shooting in October/November while fading into the background as Elton Brand carved out his niche, Thaddeus Young asserted himself and Andre Miller picked up the slack.

But finally, with a quarter of the season in the books, the old Iguodala is starting to shine through. The 76ers lost the game on Saturday, but for the first time in the team's 22 games this year, Iguodala led the team in scoring.

Sure, it's a minor victory in the face of a loss (and it wasn't wholly unexpected given Brand's absence), but there's no denying that Iggy has seemed to turn the corner: in four games this month, he's averaging 19.5 points and 8.3 boards on 49.2% shooting.

What was behind Iggy's slow start? Speaking to the press before Friday's game, Mo Cheeks dismissed the notion that Iguodala struggled to adjust from the three to the two, pointing out that in Philly's system the two positions are quite similar.

Have you looked at the 76ers stats recently? Thaddeus Young is leading the team after 10 games with 16.3 points a night. To say that's a surprise is an understatement, especially after the Sixers invested nearly $160 million in Elton Brand and Andre Iguodala this summer.

To be fair, Brand isn't far behind with 15.5 points, and he's averaging a double-double with 10.3 boards, to boot. But Iguodala? He's been the team's fourth-leading scorer, chipping in a mere 12.4 points. Sure, some of the blame lies with a career-low (and likely flukish) 37.8% shooting percentage, but he's also fourth on the team in field-goals attempted, proof of how far he's slipped in the team's plans. I'm not worried, though; he's the team's leader and a savvy veteran -- he'll figure things out eventually.

But let's get back to Young, who's essentially doubled his rookie scoring average (8.3 points). Is this just a hot start that will eventually fade? Maybe to a degree, but I'm convinced the progress is for real. He spent much of last year playing out of position at the four, but since moving back to small forward his versatility, especially on the perimeter, is starting to shine.

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.

For a team that looked destined for the lottery early in the year, the Sixers deserve a lot of credit for not only making the playoffs but also making the Pistons sweat. There are a lot of talented young pieces on this 76ers team, and a coach who knows how to help them improve. This team will be back next year, and if they invest their free agent dollars wisely, they may even contend for home court advantage. (No, seriously.) Let's recap their playoff run:

How They Got to the Dance: Believe it or not, the 76ers were actually one of the hottest teams in the league for a stretch in the second half, winning 19 of 24 from early February to late March. Losing five of six right at the end of the regular season kept them from posting a winning record (they finished 40-42), but that second-half surge was the result of a very young team taking the next step.

How They Got Bounced: Simply put, the Pistons woke up. The Sixers should be commended for jumping out to a 2-1 series lead, but the Pistons were just too deep, too talented and too experienced to simply roll over. That said, it would've helped Andre Iguodala failed to live up to top banana status, a role for which he may or may not be suited; the team's leading scorer in the regular season, Iguodala was held to just 13 points a night on 30% shooting. Even if the team's two wins he was largely irrelevant, a performance that likely cost him a few million off his next contract.

Notes from a trip to the NBA Playoffs.

The Pistons opened the playoffs with a whimper, dropping two of their first three games to the 76ers and needing to come back from a double-digit halftime deficit in Game 4 to tie the series. I had a hunch they'd pull it out in Game 5 in front of a raucous crowd at the Palace, but I wasn't sure if it'd be another come-from-behind high-wire act or a blowout.

It didn't take long to figure it out.

The 76ers never had a chance after the Pistons kicked off the first quarter shooting 78.9% (15-19) from the field and jumping out to a 35-21 lead. Chauncey Billups, who averaged 13 points on 28.6% shooting in the first four games, scored 14 of his 21 points in the first quarter alone. Rip Hamilton, who missed 12 of his first 13 shots in Game 4, nailed 4-5 from the field for eight of his 20. Both the Pistons and Sixers have squandered leads in this series, but the Pistons held onto this one the rest of the night, leading by as many as 26 at one point before winning 98-81.

After the game, Mo Cheeks described how difficult it was to stop a team in which everybody on the floor was a threat to score. "There was a play that happened in front of our bench where Thaddeus Young was getting ready to rotate," said Cheeks. "He had Rip in the corner, he had Rasheed popping up top, and he was trying to figure out which one to go to. That put it in perspective right there. Do I got to Rasheed, do I go to Rip? He chose to go to Rip; Rasheed hits a three. And that put it in perspective because they have different guys that can make a shot at any time. And they were passing the ball so well, they were on the same page tonight. They were very good tonight."