FanHouse TonyDiLeo

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.

CHICAGO -- To all the prejudices and biases that complicate our tangled world, today we add "oafism." Rajon Rondo, as you probably know, all but defaced Brad Miller in the final frenetic seconds of Game 5 in the Best NBA First-Round Series Ever Played. Rondo leaped, popped him in the mouth, drew blood when Miller's tooth cut his lip, forced him to get a stitch job and left him so woozy that his eyeballs were peeking out of his eardrums.

We showed you the play from Game 5 where Dwight Howard threw a clearly intentional elbow to the head of Samuel Dalembert, after which it was assumed that the act would warrant a suspension.

And in fact, it has. The league wasted little time in reviewing the play, and announced that Howard will be suspended one game without pay for the incident.

ORLANDO -- NBA Commissioner David Stern came was in Orlando for Game 5, and after touring the still-under-construction Events Center Tuesday afternoon, he promised Magic fans that the NBA All-Star Game soon would be coming back to Orlando. The All-Star Game was here in 1992. The Magic's new arena is scheduled to open for the 2010-11 season. "The All-Star Game is in Orlando's future," Stern said before the game. "This is going to be a darned good building. It's going to be a real 'wow.'"

Stern also cast aside the rumors that he could step down from the job before the current collective bargaining agreement ends after the 2010-11 season, knowing that negotiations for the next CBA could be messy.

Elton Brand has been back for three games now, two of them Philadelphia wins. Brand's Wednesday triumph in Houston was the sort of game Philadelphia dreamed about last July: 14 points, seven rebounds and six blocks in just 27 minutes, a +6 in the ledger. While the incumbent 76er starting five from most of 2007-08 fell behind Houston's front five, Brand helped pick them up and get Philly a nice road win.

That's how it was supposed to work ... but it didn't, not in November or December. So if it works when Brand comes off the bench, is there any reason to put the $14 million man back in the starting line-up? Coach Tony DiLeo doesn't seem to think so.

Perhaps surprisingly, Philadelphia has won both games under Tony DiLeo, the front office chap who took over for Mo Cheeks on Saturday. The competition, of course, matters -- the marks were Washington and on Wednesday night, the Bucks. But it's one step forward, two steps back for the Sixers, as Elton Brand left Wednesday's game with a dislocated shoulder.

Brand will have an MRI today, so there's word yet on how long the Sixers will miss E.B. For what it's worth, Dwyane Wade suffered a dislocated shoulder in he 2006-07 season, and missed about six weeks. Unlike Wade, Brand did not require a wheelchair to get off the court.

Brand has been average to date in Philly, but average still makes him the best Sixer. Considering the biggest adjustment DiLeo will be trying to make over the next months is implementing Brand into the oddly talented mix of old Sixers -- the hurdle just going to be delayed until February or whenever. That puts off the date we can hope to see a jelling Philadelphia team even further.

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:

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.