Stefanski Hosts Blogger Conference Call

[The Guilty Party]

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-3 ... astic.html

According to Henry Abbott of ESPN's True Hoop, Ed Stefanski and the Sixers' PR Dept held a 25 conference call just for web bloggers and apparently they treated this like it was a real press they were dealing with. This doesn't come as much of a surprise since RealGM's own dbodner got a chance to chat with Ed shortly after he took the job and a number of other bloggers also said they were able to chat with Ed. I wonder if dabods was on this conference call as well. If not... here are some snippets from the Abbott blog.

* Stefanski said the Sixers would not have signed Theo Ratliff if Jason Smith had not been injured, and that injury could also mean some NBA playing time for promising rookie big man Marreese Speights.
* Stefanski confirmed that Andre Miller does not have an agent at the moment. Miller had been represented by Lon Babby. When he has an agent, they will talk about an extension.
* He does not anticipate any more deals, although when Willie Green came up, Stefanski said that the team didn't plan to trade him, and he'd get an opportunity to play. Which struck me as notably not the same as saying we think he's a big part of our future. That all makes sense, too. Any GM would prefer those touches go to Louis Williams, Andre Iguodala, Elton Brand, Thaddeus Young and the like.
* Stefanski thinks the Sixers can still run, even with Elton Brand. He points out that Samuel Dalembert is a very fast big man, and if Brand is the trailer on the fast break, that's not the end of the world.
* On the topic of players heading overseas in bigging numbers, Stefanski more or less read from the NBA hymnal: "I know the NBA is the greatest league in the world," he says. "The best players in the world want to take a shot at the NBA." True. Except for Josh Childress, Carlos Delfino, Carlos Arroyo, Earl Boykins, Juan Carlos Navarro, Primoz Brezec, Nenad Krstic, Bostjan Nachbar, Loren Woods etc.
* Asked why the Sixers never made an offer to Josh Smith, after courting him, Stefanski said the Sixers love Smith, but suspected the Hawks would match any offer they made. They had also never been certain who might enter unrestricted free agency, and were thrilled when Elton Brand entered the market. Asked later if he thought the Hawks got Smith at a bargain rate, Stefanski said he thought the Hawks were very pleased to have been able to match an offer to Smith, instead of negotiating themselves.

[The Guilty Party]

Here's a link to another blogger who was apparently on the call as well.

http://www.depressedfan.com/basketball/ ... e-call.php

[JGeils]

I was in on the call, and he was really high on Speights.

My favorite quote:

"When Andre Miller takes the summer off, he really takes the summer off."

[The Guilty Party]

Apparently dbodner was on the conference call as well. Hopefully he'll post his recap here.