NOV. 24, 2008 . . .

Eddie Jordan and Mike O'Koren had just come back from handing out Thanksgiving turkeys to needy families in Washington.

It was roughly 8:30 in the morning.

Just in time to be told by Washington Wizards president Ernie Grunfeld that they were, after just 11 games of the 2008-09 season, being fired as head coach and associate head coach, respectively.

Gone, with a 1-10 record, after reaching the playoffs in four of the previous five seasons.

The schedule, though, has a way of sending reminders, touching nerves, drawing out memories. That will happen tonight as Jordan and O'Koren coach the 76ers in the Verizon Center against the Wizards on the 1-year anniversary - to the day - of their dismissals.

"It was the best thing to happen to me at the time," Jordan said after practice yesterday at Philadelphia College Of Osteopathic Medicine. "I said it before, it was the right thing to do at the right time for both the team and for me and Mike.

"My stance was, the team was in a situation where the best player [Gilbert Arenas] was out, [center] Brendan Haywood was out, the veterans were a little bit on the older side that we had to rely on, and we had young talent. If the expectations weren't going to change, then we were on the wrong page [with management]; we weren't on the same page.

"The message was, we still were a .500 team and a playoff team, and in my mind it wasn't that; that wasn't the case."

Jordan remembers Grunfeld, in making the move and giving the coaching reins to front-office executive Ed Tapscott, as "very sincere."

"Not apologetic, but he had to do what he had to do," Jordan said. "I said, 'Ernie, I understand. It's the right thing to do,' and it worked out . . . for me anyway."

It's too early to really gauge how it has worked out for either side. The Sixers are 5-8, seemingly in a struggle to grasp all of Jordan's read-and-react Princeton offense; they are without injured big man Marreese Speights, who had been their best scorer off the bench, and have yet to settle on a substitution rotation. The Wizards, under new coach Flip Saunders, are 3-9, have dropped eight of their last nine and have been beaten by at least 10 points seven times.

The Sixers' Willie Green has talked about the necessity of figuring out what type of team they want to be after being primarily a running bunch the previous three seasons; Jordan seemed to motivate starting power forward Elton Brand by publicly suggesting that Brand could be better served as the center with the second unit. Arenas groused the other day about "hidden agendas" within the Wizards, and Haywood mentioned that "It's very frustrating because our talent is not winning out over our egos."

In the Washington Post, Arenas said, "The NBA's a ship. It's going to keep moving. Teams are not waiting for us. As the captain, I've got to steer my ship. If I've got to steer it to land until everybody wants to jump on, then I'm going to do it . . . And we'll see who comes and follows. If nobody wants to follow, then the boat's just going to keep moving."

Jordan was more than aware of what was being said around his previous team, but he wasn't about to bite.

Of Arenas, he said, "It doesn't surprise me. Gilbert's very outspoken. Some of it's for entertainment; some of it is coming from his heart. He's capable of leading them in scoring; he's capable of leading them in being a presence that is very competitive, and that can be contagious. I don't know if he can be a leader. I just don't know that. I'm not saying he can't. I just don't know if he can be."

Of the Wizards, he said, "I know they can be a very good team . . . I know that. We've been around long enough to know [tonight] is a game we want to play well in. I know their personnel; they have a good team. They've got scorers, they've got veterans and they've played together for a while. I know it's a new system they're trying to learn, but they know each other."

He has said that he got more emotional when he first returned with a new team to Sacramento and New Jersey, places he had previously worked. But now, "It's a little bit different when you go back to somewhere you've enjoyed some success and have had some time with the players." He also said that, since the Sixers and Wizards met in the preseason, "some of that is sort of subtle now, subdued."

"I'm trying to concentrate on going in there and for us to play well," he said.

He does not appear at all distraught at the Sixers' start, but said he is "surprised" at the way the Wizards have begun "because the Big 3 are together," a reference to Arenas, Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler, not to mention the additions of former Villanova star Randy Foye and the currently injured Mike Miller.

"They've got a ton of talent, and a ton of experience," Jordan said. "That's a formidable team, and they should be very good. I don't know what their problem is."

For more Sixers coverage, read the Daily News' Sixers blog, Sixerville, at http://go.philly.com/sixerville.