Derek Bodner’s Blog

(Originally posted at PhillyArena.net)

Who’s fault is it? Like the 76ers players, I think it is overly simplistic to pin the inadequacies of this team on one person’s shoulders. Neither Billy King nor Maurice Cheeks are perfect general managers or coaches. Neither one are without their flaws. The question is, do they fit each other?

As a general manager, I think Billy King obviously he has his plusses and minuses. I think he’s a general manager who needs a coach with a vision. I think he’s good at drafting, that he has a good eye for talent, and I think he is good at working out deals. I think he has a great understanding and grasp of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. In my opinion, rarely do you see Billy get the short end of a deal talent wise. But I also think he’s a guy who isn’t the greatest at building a team, and I think the pieces he gets don’t always fit. I think he’d be a great general manager for a coach with a strong personality, someone in the Phil Jackson or Pat Riley or Larry Brown mold, where he could be told “hey, I want this guy”, or “I want this type of player”, and Billy could make that deal happen. I think when he has a coach like, say, Randy Ayers, he becomes a flawed general manager.

That brings us to the biggest problem I have had with Billy the general manager. I think he BELIEVES he has a vision, I don’t think he has attempted to find a coach to fill that role. The one coach that did seem to have a vision, Jim O’brien, something behind the scenes happened to sour that relationship. Whether it was ultimately Billy King and O’brien not seeing eye to eye, or the players and Jim O’brien not seeing eye to eye we may never know. The end result is that Billy Kings’ biggest failure has been the hiring’s of his coaches up to this point.

So the question becomes, is Maurice Cheeks the answer to that question? People have gotten on Maurice because he doesn’t bring that “fire”. Don’t mistake soft spoken with soft willed. I do believe Maurice has a strong personality, I saw it in the player and I see it in the coach. What I do question is Maurice’s pedigree on building a team, on getting the pieces that can make the team function as a unit. Does he have that vision? I am not ready to say he doesn’t have these qualities, but I haven’t seen that yet. Hopefully Maurice surprises us in the coming future.