Derek Bodner’s Blog

Posted at sixers.realgm.com

At first glance, it would appear that 76ers coach Maurice Cheeks has earned a contract extension, at least when based on his performance from the time that Stefanski began as the team president in December. If the season ended today the Sixers would be percentage points ahead of the Atlanta Hawks and in the playoffs, and there is visible growth in the development of young players such as Thaddeus Young and Louis Williams.

Does that mean Maurice Cheeks is the long term answer? Not necessarily.

The last time the team had any sort of expectations his performance was not quite as rosy. For as much as this team has overachieved since jettisoning disgruntled stars Allen Iverson and Chris Webber midway through last season, they equally underachieved the previous 1.5 seasons of Maurice Cheeks’ tenure. After making the playoffs and challenging the Pistons in the first round of the 2004-2005 NBA playoffs, the Sixers returned virtually the same team, with Maurice Cheeks replacing Jim O’Brien as coach, and finished with 38 wins, missing the playoffs. That season was then followed by the train wreck 5-18 start that sent the team into the full-fledged rebuilding mode the team is now entrenched in. That was a quite precipitous drop from playoff team to also-ran that becomes particularly disturbing when looking at the low roster turnover. The fact still remains that Maurice Cheeks the coach has never won a playoff series, and he has not yet proven that he is in that upper tier of coaches in the league.

Still, it would be difficult to deny that the 52-59 record the team has posted since Andre Miller arrived has been an overachievement. If Maurice Cheeks survived the initial year and a half of disappointing play, nothing that has transpired recently would have lost him his job.

Preventing the coaching carousel that has plagued this team during the Billy King era and providing some consistency may be beneficial for the development of the young players the team has. It allows Cheeks to operate with at least a little bit of security, something not afforded to a lame duck coach, and from the Sixers perspective does not provide too big of a financial obstacle should Stefanski decide later on that Cheeks is not the right coach for the next phase of the Sixers journey back into contention. A one year contract extension, while not necessarily a full-fledged endorsement of Maurice Cheeks, may be best for all parties.