New Man in Charge of Sixers

When the Sixers (finally) fired team president and GM Billy King last week, I immediately started thinking about a celebratory blog post.  After all, over the last six years the team has gone from Eastern Conference Champions to one of the worst teams in the NBA.  The fact that we’ve been running this blog for over a month now and this is the first post regarding the Sixers tells you all you need to know about the level of irrelevance they’ve reached under King’s leadership. 

I was even trying to come up with a clever title for the post, something along the lines of ‘Hallelujah, the King is Dead’.  But as I started thinking about a post that would detail the many dubious personnel moves King made throughout his tenure, I realized two things: One, most people are already painfully aware of the man’s mistakes and shortcomings.  All you have to do is have a look at their win-loss record over the last four years and the current talent-level to see that things have not gone well. 

The second thing I realized is this: I don’t dislike Billy King.  I think he’s downright awful at running an NBA team and I’m very happy to see him lose his job, but I think he always put everything he had into the job.  He’s an honest and classy guy.  Instead of dragging his name through the mud any more and rehashing all the depressing details of his time at the helm, I’d rather have a look at the man that will shape the future of the team: former Nets GM Ed Stefanski.

All the articles out of Philly after the hiring focused on the fact that Stefanski is a native Philadelphian, coming home to run the team he rooted for his whole life before being hired by the Nets nine years ago.  The fact that he played at Penn and is a graduate of the Wharton School suggests that he knows the game well and that he’s a pretty smart guy.  But, I still wondered at first if this was the right hire.  I mean, it’s not like the Nets have been winning any championship trophies lately.  They’ve won the Atlantic Division four of the last six years, but how much of an accomplishment is that?  They made the NBA Finals in back-to-back years (’02-’03), but they certainly didn’t have a chance of winning either of those series.

I would’ve been more excited had the Sixers hired an up-and-coming front office man from one of the league’s premeire organizations, like when Toronto hired Bryan Colangelo from the Suns, or when Seattle hired Sam Presti from the Spurs.  But, alas, there’s only so many young hotshots out there.  When you take a look at what New Jersey accomplished in Stefanski’s time there, and also what was said about him last week after he left the job, it starts to look like a pretty good move by the Sixers.

Stefanski served as the Nets director of scouting before becoming the GM and he has a reputation for being an excellent talent evaluator.  Fred Kerber, of the New York Post, calls Stefanski a “draft sage” and says he was instrumental in the drafting of Kenyon Martin, Nenad Krstic, and Sean Williams.  Stefanski handled the Nets international scouting, an area in which the Sixers have been lagging far behind most of the league.  The Sixers have no international players on their roster (Sam Dalembert played college ball in the States), at a time when the reigning MVP is from Germany and the defending NBA Champs have numerous key foreign players, namely Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.  Aside from drafting, Stefanski was also responsible for the trades that brought Richard Jefferson and Vince Carter to the Nets.

Like I said, the Nets haven’t been championship contenders in Stefanski’s time there, but when you look at the history of the team, what they’ve accomplished this decade is pretty impressive.  Prior to the ’01-’02 season (Stefanski’s fourth year with the team) the Nets had been past the first-round of the playoffs exactly ONE time since their debut season in 1976, and had never been past the second-round.  In the six seasons since then, they’ve been past the first-round five times, including those two trips to the Finals.  Granted, it’s been a very weak Eastern Conference for the entire decade, but the Nets have been one of it’s top teams, ranking second in the conference (behind the Pistons) in wins over the last six seasons.

So, is Stefanski the Mr. Fix-It the team needs?  It will be a while before anyone knows for sure.  The Sixers are at least a couple seasons away from being competitive again and, due to the circumstances, Stefanski will most likely be given a grace period longer than most in Philadelphia.  He does seem to be almost universally liked and respected, and two of his former Nets colleagues, team president Rod Thorn and coach Lawrence Frank, gave him some of the highest praise you’ll hear.

The bottom line is, the Sixers need to rebuild and leaving that task to Billy King was a fairly terrifying proposition.  With Ed Stefanski now at the helm, Sixers fans can be optimistic of better days, and more wins, ahead.