- Personnel should be Sixers' priority
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Rich Hofmann: Personnel issues should be Sixers' No. 1 priority
Rich Hofmann: Personnel issues should be Sixers' No. 1 priority
THE CENTER can do some things, but only some, and apparently only when he feels like it. That is the Samuel Dalembert problem.
The shooting guard, an honest workman, just isn't good enough to be starting for an NBA playoff team. That is the Willie Green issue.
DAVID MAIALETTI / Staff photographer
One of the first things Ed Stefanski must do is subtract Samuel Dalembert, conversing with Andre Iguodala during Orlando series.
The point guard is a free agent and probably doesn't want to come back anyway, but he also is a player whose offensive genius is pretty much canceled out anymore by his defensive inability. That is the Andre Miller discussion.
The centerpiece has been hurt, and how he fits in remains undetermined, and how it all will come together remains the main story of next season. That is the Elton Brand saga.
After that comes the coach.
It's the players, Ed.
"We have good players that people will like to coach,'' said Ed Stefanski, the Sixers' president and general manager. Stefanski said that prospective coaches will be "lining up" to get what he considers to be a good job among NBA coaching jobs. It's all probably true.
But they do not have enough good players. And they need to alter the mix of players. And as we all will be fixated on what Stefan-ski decides about a replacement for Tony DiLeo, the interim coach/good soldier who has taken his name out of the coaching derby and decided to return to the front office, none of us can forget that it is the stirring of this mix that will matter the most.
Stefanski said he would love to hire a big-splash guy for his attendance-challenged franchise, but only if he is the right guy. He offered no hints on what might be coming. He said the guy should be hired by July 1, the start of the free-agent signing period, but would not commit to any other timetable.
"I'm going to start putting things together," Stefanski said, indicating that strong communication skills were tops on his list of requirements. "Obviously, you know people in the league and outside the league. You're always talking about coaching. I do know coaches."
Whoever it is, though - experienced or green, quiet or loud, tactician or big-picture guy, big money or cheap - the hiring of the coach really is about the fourth most important thing that Stefanski will do this summer. Because the coach had nothing to do with how the Sixers folded at the end of their playoff series against Orlando, and the coach had nothing to do with the fact that this team spent the season dying for somebody who could make an outside shot, among other things.
Most of us can't get the end of that Orlando series out of our heads, with the Sixers completely rolling over in Game 6 at home and not even competing. Stefanski says he doesn't want the players ever to forget it, but he insists that it does not define this franchise, however pervasive the stench.
"One game does not make a season," he said. "I think if
you've watched the NBA playoffs, you see certain teams get blown out . . . We did not have a trademark on Game 6."
Still, it happened. Looking from the outside, it makes you question everything. That playoff loss, with that awful punctuation, likely assured a coaching change.
A couple of words about DiLeo here. When Stefanski gave him the job after firing Mo Cheeks, everybody assumed DiLeo was just filling the seat until the end of the season and doing an up-close-and-personal evaluation of the hired help. And then, lo and behold, they played pretty well for him, and they played the right style for him, and DiLeo earned himself a place in the conversation for 2009-10.
But the end was so bad that the wind shifted very quickly. It is likely that Stefanski would have pushed had DiLeo not chosen to jump, but it really doesn't matter anymore.
Because if they can't find a shooter, Avery Johnson will not be able to get them much above .500.
And if they can't find someplace to stick Dalembert, ideally in another time zone, Jeff Van Gundy will not be able to coach them out of the first round.
And if a new point guard is not acquired somehow, drafted or otherwise, Eddie Jordan is not going to be able to work any kind of magic on a whiteboard.
And if Elton Brand isn't Elton Brand, well, you get the point. *
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