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I'm talking about Billy King, obviously he's not going to win it, but I believe he shouldve gotten consideration if he was still employed. He built the current sixers team with a solid young nucleus and is poised for a a return to the playoffs with their great play while people considered them "rebuilding."

Was he done wrong by being fired in december?

Should he have been fired? No.

Would he have won EoTY? No. McHale has that one locked up for helping his Celtics get Garnett.

billy always had an eye for young talent...him and tony deleo who was our director or scouting and assistant gm really found some gems over the past 5 years in guys like iggy and thad while getting rotation guys in the 2nd round in korver, willie green, and lou williams

billy was done in by a few things though...1...no one was quite sure he was committed to rebuilding...he would say he had a 3 year plan but then would trade expiring contracts for reggie evans and sign calvin booth to 2 year deals...in hindsight, the evans trade was a huge plus for us getting to the playoffs but was not a smart move in the whole "rebuilding" theme...

in contrast, stefanski moved korver for expirings to compensate for evans deal as well as to open time for thaddeus young and rodney carney

billys 2nd fatal flaw was sometimes overvaluing his own talent...he was not good at handing out contracts...while he would find nice players, hed pay them much more than they were worth...a few years ago he basically outbid against himself to resign dalembert who was an rfa...willie green was signed to a 5 year 17 million dollar deal coming off a torn acl...

this is more likely the reason he was let go, with a bunch of young players coming up for extensions and cap room to make a serious move, comcast just didnt feel it had trust in billy to take this team to the next level...wish him well though bc i also think he got a raw deal in philly, he tried his best to clean up a mess left by larry brown

Also, a big part of King's legacy was the Iverson trade. Trading the Sixers' franchise player was going to be huge no matter how it turned out.

The idea was presumably to rebuild...get a talented veteran, an expiring, and 2 picks. Andre Miller has played better than even the Sixers expected, and put the rebuild on hold a bit, but that didn't really kick in until after King was fired.

With his 2 picks, Kings couldn't leave well enough alone, he had to keep fiddling...he picked Daequan Cook with one, and traded it for Jason Smith. (Smith has potential, but Cook has looked good already. Strike one.) "Sure, but the Sixers didn't need another scoring 2 guard," say some. Fair enough...but with the other pick, King took a foreign PG in Petteri Kopponen and traded it...for a scoring 2 guard in Derrick Byars. Instead of keeping Kopponen overseas for free, King swapped him for an unnecessary scorer who didn't even last the pre-season before getting cut. So instead of paying nothing for value, the Sixers ended up paying money for nothing.

With a rebuild in the plans, King just kept messing around and taking steps back. Not great for a move that should define his legacy. Miller's resurgence and Smith's development (if it ever happens) came too late to save him.

Liqourish wrote:
McHale has that one locked up for helping his Celtics get Garnett.

Oh, please stop with this stupidity!

Didnt he give Kenny Thomas that gigantic contract? And executive of the year? Come on now thats ridiculous, they are a .500 team in the Eastern Confernce....not much to scream about.

King has his ups and downs...

prorl wrote:Didnt he give Kenny Thomas that gigantic contract? And executive of the year? Come on now thats ridiculous, they are a .500 team in the Eastern Confernce....not much to scream about.

Yes, and then he turned that and two other PFs into Chris Webber and two filler players. Webber gave the Sixers about a 1 1/2 season of service for the low price of $40 mil (?).

It'll be interesting either way, but I'd almost rather see a newbie brought in to essentially intern under King until that guy is ready to take over. King is nothing special.

Ainge does not have it locked up. Kupchak is definitely in the race.

Assistant GM (if that title even exists) at best.