Maurice Cheeks' Firing Another Example of What's Wrong with NBA

Maurice Cheeks was the heady point guard of the Philadelphia 76ers' 1983 NBA championship team—one of the NBA's greatest teams. He was always well-liked by the players here in his days as an assistant under Larry Brown and was on the coaching staff of the Sixers' 2001 run to the NBA Finals.

As head man in Portland, Cheeks won 99 games in his first two seasons, while somehow managing a roster that featured known headcases Rasheed Wallace, Damon Stoudamire, Bonzi Wells, Ruben Patterson, and Zach Randolph. This is the team which, soon after Cheeks' departure, would be referred to as the "Jailblazers."

He seemed like the perfect man to lead this team, beginning in 2005-06 when they were trying to win with two stars (Allen Iverson and Chris Webber) and a young, unpolished supporting cast. Coming into 2005-06, the Sixers had gone through four coaches in the previous three seasons and were in desperate need of stability.

It didn't work out with Iverson and Webber. Although C-Webb put up good numbers, his knee injury had taken enough of a toll on him that he was a shell of his former self, resigned to elbow jumpers as his main offensive weapon. He scored 20 points per game, but shot only 43 percent, a very low number for a power forward.

The egos of these two stars would not allow them to gel with the rest of the team. Iverson and Cheeks were close while Cheeks was an assistant, but when he came back as the head man, they never got along. Eventually both were shipped out of town in a move toward full-scale rebuilding.

And with the rebuilding squad, he did a great job of developing young talent. Under Cheeks' tutelage rising stars Andre Iguodala, Louis Williams, and Thaddeus Young all began to blossom and the team played an exciting, attacking style.

The young squad went 30-28 to finish the 2006-07 season after trading Iverson, and after a rough start to the following year, finished 35-29 in the final 64 games to make the playoffs.

That 2007-08 team, whose final record was 40-42, was picked by most experts to finish dead last in the Eastern Conference. The team was young and inexperienced and without a proven go-to scorer. About a quarter of the way through the season, Cheeks was able to find a suitable style of play for the players he had and ran with it.

They made the playoffs and in the first round pushed the mighty Pistons to six games, giving a great team a very tough challenge. After witnessing the transformation the young team went through last season, most expected them to take the next leap forward this year.

When the front office spent about a combined $160 million to sign star forward Elton Brand and lock up Iguodala long-term, expectations rose yet again. This team was now a trendy pick to challenge for the Eastern Conference crown and was expected to be, at worst, the fifth best team in the East.

Through 23 games, this has not happened. The 76ers sit at just 9-14 after losing eight of their last 10 games, and are in last place in the Atlantic Division, behind even the New York Knicks. Obviously, things have not gone according to plan.

But this is not a good enough reason to fire Cheeks right now. As I mentioned earlier, it took a quarter of the season last year for Cheeks to find the appropriate style of play for that team. Last year's team got off to an even rougher start at 5-13.

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