Category: Philadelphia 76ers Blog

The Philadelphia 76ers announced today that Senior Vice President of Basketball Operations Tony DiLeo has been promoted to General Manager.

“We are proud to announce that, effective immediately, we have promoted Tony DiLeo to the role of 76ers General Manager and at this time he will work alongside Rod Thorn, who continues his duties as President of Basketball Operations,” said Sixers Owner Josh Harris. “We are very confident that Tony has the experience and knowledge to flourish in his new role, and we will continue to provide him with the necessary tools and resources – including enhancing our capabilities in analytics – to strengthen our basketball operations department.”

“I am very excited about being named General Manager of this organization and look forward to building upon our recent success,” DiLeo said. “I would like to thank Josh Harris and the ownership group for providing me with this opportunity and I will continue to work tirelessly to ensure we put a team that our fans will be proud to support, both this season and in the future.”

DiLeo, who is entering his 23rd season with the 76ers, becomes the team’s 12th General Manager in franchise history. He was promoted to his current position after serving as the team’s senior vice president of basketball operations since September of 2003, following a four-year run as the team’s director of player personnel from 1999 to 2003.

During the 2008-09 season, DiLeo stepped in as head coach following the Sixers 9-14 start and guided the team to a 32-27 mark the rest of the way. Of the eight teams which changed coaches during that season, the Sixers were the only one to make the playoffs.

During DiLeo’s time as senior vice president of basketball operations, he was actively involved in player procurement, including the recent four-team trade that brought Andrew Bynum to Philadelphia. Additionally, his evaluation of amateur and professional talent and supervision of the team’s draft recently produced the likes of Andre Iguodala, Lou Williams, Thaddeus Young, Jrue Holiday, Evan Turner and Lavoy Allen. In addition, DiLeo was instrumental in drafting Allen Iverson and surrounding the future hall-of-famer with the talented roster which produced 56 wins in 2000-01 and captured the Eastern Conference Championship.

Prior to joining the Sixers in 1990-91, DiLeo built his extensive international experience through 10 years of playing and coaching in West Germany. He coached both men’s and women’s teams during that span, winning nine nationals titles in the country’s top division. DiLeo also served as the West German Federation National Coach from 1981 though 1985 and was named the country’s coach of the year in 1987.

In 1984, DiLeo wrote and published the European Basketball Handbook, a guide designed to help acclimate Americans playing overseas. He also has written a manual on rule differences among international basketball, the NBA and the NCAA.

Jrue Holiday will be asked to be a more vocal leader and take ownership of a squad that features eight new faces.

Holiday enters a critical fourth NBA season. He will play the 2012-13 campaign likely on the final year of his original four-year contract. The Sixers can sign him to an extension now, but given that Holiday is seeking a max contract, the more likely scenario is that he will become a restricted free agent next summer, which means the Sixers will have an opportunity to match any offer that comes Holiday’s way.

The 22-year-old point guard has started 198 games over the last three years, including every game the last two seasons. He averaged 13.5 points per game and 4.5 assists last season. Those statistics, when compared with those of other starting point guards in the Eastern Conference, are about middle of the road.

— Reported by Dei Lynam of CSN Philly

Collins doesn’t seek the subject, but when asked during this weekend’s reunion of the ’72 team about whether he would like to be the Olympic coach, he showed typical candor while also professing a desire to stay with the Sixers long-term.

“It’s a tremendous honor that somebody would even throw my name out there,” Collins said. “It’s four years down the road and I understand in this business you hope you are an active coach at the time.”

Which means obviously with the Sixers.

“I am hoping that I am still active and I would like to coach four or five years in Philadelphia,” he said.

So much for the assumption that Collins was taking things in Philadelphia on a yearly basis.

“I feel good about our team and I love my staff, what we are doing and where we are headed,” Collins continued. “The ownership, Josh [Harris], has been so good to me, so I feel really good about that.”

— Reported by Marc Narducci of the Philadelphia Inquirer

There will be a grand total of nine Sixers whose contracts will expire within the next two years.

Five of those contracts — Bynum, Jrue Holiday, Nick Young, Dorell Wright and Royal Ivey — are up at the end of next season. Four more — Evan Turner, Spencer Hawes, Kwame Brown and Lavoy Allen — expire at the end of the 2013-14 season. For reference, Brown’s is technically for one season with a player option for a second, though his agent has called it a two-year deal.

Starting with the five due to end next summer, the Sixers could very well walk into free agency with roughly $30 million off their books. Of course, should they re-sign Bynum, his max-deal will take up about two-thirds of that space. Then there’s Holiday, to whom the team can extend a qualifying offer for one more year, but Holiday is reportedly seeking a max-contract instead. Go figure.

— Reported by Nick Menta of CSN Philly

The Sixers may have just swung a deal for Andrew Bynum, but they’re still looking for a new general manager.

Boston Celtics assistant GM Mike Zarren has emerged as a candidate for the job, a source confirms to CSNPhilly.com’s John Finger.

Zarren’s involvement was first reported by Sports Illustrated’s Sam Amick, who described Zarren as “an intriguing addition to the field of prospects; a widely-respected purveyor of advanced player statistics in the NBA who is one of the least-known yet most-influential members of the Celtics’ front office group,” and the “right-hand man of [Celtics GM] Danny Ainge.”

— Reported by CSN Philly

While 76ers center Andrew Bynum has chosen to have the creator of the noninvasive, nonsurgical procedure administer the injections to his knees that he hopes will extend his career next month in Dusseldorf, Germany, the procedure – known as regenokine treatment – has been administered in the United States for almost a decade.

“Regenokine is the most effective treatment for joint problems caused by osteoarthritis,” said Chris Renna, a specialist in preventative medicine. “It is corroborated by independent studies published in 2003 in the Journal of Osteoarthritis and Orthopedics.”

The treatment was first cleared for widespread use in Germany in 2003. More recently, medical boards in the United States have cleared the procedure in states such as California, Texas, and New York, among others.

— Reported by John N. Mitchell of the Philadelphia Inquirer

The season prior, the Sixers finished 25th out of the NBA’s 30 teams in average home attendance, drawing 14,751 a night. That figure was good enough for dead last in percentage of arena capacity filled. Believe it or not, those numbers were an improvement from the season before that, when the team drew just 14,224 per game and finished not last, but second to last in percentage of capacity.

After the league settled a frustrating lockout and began a condensed season last December, the Sixers jumped out to a most unexpected and welcome 16-6 start to lead the Atlantic Division. Granted, the team lulled badly shortly thereafter, coming back to the pack — and Earth, for that matter — as the season wore on, but its performance was good enough to make a difference in ticket sales. The Sixers jumped from 25th to 14th in the warm body count last season, accounting for 17,502 a night.

— Reported by Nick Menta of CSN Philly