Chris Webber.

Glenn Robinson.

Randy Ayers.

Kenny Thomas.

Pick a reason—any reason—for the firing of Philadelphia 76ers President and GM Billy King.

In one of the longest overdue terminations in recent sports history, the Sixers handed King his pink slip yesterday.

King has presided over a steady decline since Philly went to the NBA Finals in 2001. The Sixers have gone from one of the most exciting teams in the league to a nonentity whose fans are hard-pressed to identify more than two players on the roster—thanks to botched draft picks, horrible trades, and insane contracts.

Sure King had help over the years—namely from Larry "I drafted Larry Hughes ahead of Paul Pierce" Brown.

But these last few years King has had the ship all to himself. And that ship is currently docked next to the Titanic.

Let’s start with the ridiculous extensions given to marginal players like Samuel Dalembert, Kyle Korver, and Willie Green.

Dalembert, a guy who barely understands the game—as he is from Haiti and only started playing late in high school—will make $9 million this year. He's scheduled to make $10, $11, and $12 million in the next three years.

Guaranteed, of course—for a guy with career averages of 8.0 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 1.9 blocks per game.

Then there were King's garbage-for-trash trades, like (essentially) Kenny Thomas and Brian Skinner for Chris Webber—which by the way was only possible because of the demented extensions King gave to Skinner and Thomas to begin with.

For those keeping score, Webber is limping around somewhere on the Sixers’ books for $19 million this year. Yeah, good stuff.

And the draft. Oh the draft.

The Sixers had three first-rounders in the 2007 Draft. Fans' expectations of grabbing at least one starter—from what everyone said was a strong class—seemed reasonable.

Instead, we got Thaddeus Young, a project who can’t get on the floor with a five-win team...and Jason Smith, a big white guy who can’t move or jump...and Derrick Byars, who's since been cut.

That alone should get any GM committed, much less fired. Tack it on to the other nonsense, and it's clear that King should’ve been gone a long time ago.

Tack all that on to the fact that the stiffs from this year’s draft and Andre Miller are all the Sixers got in return for Allen Iverson...and you can see why Sixers fans, upon hearing the good news, are falling to their knees and rejoicing like Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption.

I won’t even get into the hiring of head coach Randy Ayers, a guy who barely won in college (124-108 in eight seasons), and not surprisingly didn’t win in the pros...or the firing of Jim O’Brien, a guy who got canned for wanting players to show up and obey team rules.

All told (and believe me, this is only scratching the surface), King makes Isiah Thomas look like Red Auerbach.

I like what I've read about Ed Stefanksi, the Sixers' new GM. There’s a lot of talk about him being a great talent evaluator, and of his being instrumental in landing Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson, and (since-departed) Kenyon Martin in New Jersey.

Of course, there was also that recent monster extension to Vince Carter...but hey, let’s try to stay positive right?

Given King's track record, if Stefanski shows up awake, on time, and sober, we've already come out ahead.