Sixers Reportedly Reach Agreement To Make Doug Collins Next Head Coach

The 76ers have made it official. Their new coach will be former TNT analyst Doug Collins. 

The team sent out a press release announcing the decision earlier Friday, with general manager Ed Stefanski quoted.

"We are excited to hire a head coach with the level of experience, knowledge and passion for the game that Doug Collins has," said Stefanski. "He has been around basketball his entire life, has experienced success at every step throughout his career and we are confident in his ability to lead our team."    

Collins takes over a team that won the second pick in the NBA Draft earlier this week. They are reportedly shopping that pick, on the condition that the other team take on Elton Brand's gargantuan contract. 

It's looking more and more like Doug Collins will be the new 76ers' coach for quite some time. ESPN's Chris Sheridan is reporting that Collins is expected to sign a four-year contract.

The Philadelphia 76ers agreed on a four-year deal with TV analyst Doug Collins to become their new coach, a source told ESPN.com's Chris Sheridan on Thursday.    

The 76ers are expected to officially announce the hire Friday. Once they do, they will become Collins' fourth team. It seemed like Collins was done with coaching after Collins' difficult two years  with the Wizards, but it didn't take long for him to get back into it. Stephen A. Smith, for one, finds this confusing, and I agree. It does seem odd that Collins suddenly wants to get back into coaching.

An AP source close to the situation is reporting that Doug Collins has agreed to become the next head coach of the 76ers. Terms of the deal were not immediately known, and the announcement is expected to be made on Friday, with Collins officially introduced Monday. 

Our Sixers blog, Liberty Ballers, says the hiring is hardly a surprise.

No surprise here. I think Doug will be a solid coach, and he's walking into a nice situation. Last year the team won 27 games and everyone despised Eddie Jordan, so Collins will look like a savior I'd the Sixers win 37+ games and play defense again.

But while the decision may not come as a surprise, it doesn't necessarily mean it is a good hire. Liberty Ballers has plenty of reasons why, starting with the fact he hasn't coached in eight years.

The last team Doug Collins coached was the 2002-2003 Washington Wizards, which was eight years ago. Eight years is a long time to be out of coaching. The game has evolved. The players have changed. The rules have changed. I have a hard time believing any coach - regardless of track record - can pick up a clipboard after being out of the league eight years and not need at least a year or two to adjust.

They also point out that Collins hasn't had a winning season since 1996.

Collins has a career 332-287 record, with Chicago, Detroit and Washington.

Read the full reaction at Liberty Ballers.

Fresh off landing the second pick in the upcoming NBA Draft, the Sixers appear to be zeroing in on their next head coach: current TNT analyst Doug Collins. According to the Philadelphia Daily News, the Sixers have begun negotiations with Collins, although a deal isn't expected to be announced Wednesday night.

Collins has compiled a 332-287 career record in three coaching stops that's included stints in Chicago, Detroit and Washington. If he does indeed return to coaching, it would mark the second time he's left the broadcast booth, having previously left his job at TNT to coach the Wizards (who featured a certain Michael Jordan) back in 2001. And it would also be a homecoming for Collins, who was drafted first overall by the Sixers in 1973, and played eight seasons for the team before injuries derailed his career.

Assuming that the Sixers do come to terms with Collins, he'd be another uninspired, albeit not terrible, choice (not to mention the second consecutive Wizards retread). As SB Nation's Liberty Ballers put it:

It's well-documented that I'm not a Doug Collins fan. The Sixers could do worse, but they could do a lot better.

After a disastrous 55-loss season under Eddie Jordan, that's probably a step forward for the Sixers. Still, it's hard to believe that someone like Avery Johnson, one of the other reputed finalists for the job, who only four years ago guided the Mavs to the Finals, wouldn't be a better choice.

For more on all things Sixers, check out Liberty Ballers.

It's hard not to sound like you're throwing a coach under the bus when you fire them after just one season on the job. Still, Sixers GM Ed Stefanski found a way to throw Eddie Jordan under the bus on his way out in today's press conference. 

"What I thought would happen did not occur, the decision was not a right one. That's why I made the choice to go now in a different direction to get someone to get us the right path."

It's one thing to say you wanted to go in a different direction. It's another to also say you messed up and hired the wrong coach. Sure, both are true, but you don't have to spell out that you messed up, because clearly you did if you're firing a coach one year after you hired him.

That wasn't all. Stefanski seemed to find other ways to put Jordan down in the press conference.

"I wouldn't say there is not talent in that locker room. We underachieved this year."    

"The one thing I always felt with this team since I've gotten here was that defense fueled our offense. We got off to a very poor start. We talked about re-emphasizing the defensive end. We did emphasize it and our numbers, we got better statistically ... We started to win some games and then we went away from that emphasis defensively and that changed."    

On the offensive system: "Obviously, it didn't work. We went through in the interview process all the personnel and what we had and the coach felt it would work. Because of the last two years in the playoffs, we were looking for that balance, efficiency in the halfcourt. We felt we had the defense, we felt we had the fastbreak ... we needed the halfcourt system to control the game better. Obviously, it did not work."    

Stefanski tends to give pretty dry quotes, so for him to repeatedly spell out that things "did not work" is pretty significant. Then again, considering how often Jordan threw his own players under the bus, maybe it's fitting that he goes out this way.

One season with Eddie Jordan as the Sixers head coach was apparently more than enough for the team to decide he wasn’t the man to lead the team. Winning just 27 games and missing the playoffs for the first time in three years probably had something to do with that conclusion.

The team has scheduled an 11 a.m. press conference, during which they are expected to officially announce the firing of Jordan.

Jordan was the team’s sixth head coach since Larry Brown left in 2003.

A day after the Sixers lost their season finale and finished with a record of 27-55, they will fire head coach Eddie Jordan, according to the AP.

A person familiar with the decision tells The Associated Press that Philadelphia 76ers coach Eddie Jordan will be fired Thursday after one season on the job.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because an announcement has not been made. Jordan is finished after a woefully underachieving season that had the Sixers mired near the bottom of the Eastern Conference. Jordan was hired last summer and sold his Princeton offense as the way to turn them into contenders.

If Jordan is fired, the Sixers will begin the search for their fourth coach in three years.

It's sounding more and more like it's a matter of when, not if Eddie Jordan will be fired as the coach of the Philadelphia 76ers. The Philadelphia Inquirer's Kate Fagan reports that Sixers brass is weighing whether to fire him now or let him finish the season and give more playing time to the team's youngsters.

Comcast-Spectacor and the 76ers are balanced on a ledge. In the next few days, they will either fire coach Eddie Jordan or step back and wait until the season ends.

One of the issues is that Jordan seems unwilling to play the team's young talent, particularly Jodie Meeks, who the Sixers acquired in a trade with Milwaukee at the trade deadline. The 76ers want to see what they have in Meeks, and Jordan hasn't let them. You read that right. If Fagan's story is to be believed (and it should be), Jordan's fate will in part be decided by how much he plays Jodie Meeks. A second-round rookie. Who was acquired for a second-round pick.

But wait, it gets better. According to Fagan, the 76ers got some advice from an unlikely source.

Former Sixers coach Larry Brown, now coach of the Charlotte Bobcats, advised Comcast-Spectacor chairman Ed Snider against firing Jordan before the season ends, according to a source close to the situation. Brown told Snider to keep Jordan, play the young guys, and make the necessary changes in April, the source said.

So the 76ers won't listen to their own coach or GM, but they will listen to a former coach that's coached about half the teams in the league. And of all people, Larry Brown? The same Larry Brown that's always switching teams? The same Larry Brown that always has a hat in the ring? The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that Brown just wants to go back to coaching Philly once the season is over. I wouldn't put it past him to do something like that.

It should come as no surprise that the 76ers are underachieving this much. Jordan's been a disaster in Philly, but he doesn't deserve this kind of treatment.

I’ll admit that Eddie Jordan is in an awkward position, with rumors swirling that the 76ers are going to fire him at the end of the year. Still, it’s kind of comical to read him trying to defend himself.

Before last night’s game against the Bobcats, Jordan was asked about accusations that he’s lost his team. Here’s his response.

“We just won a game against the fifth [actually, 6th] seed in Toronto. You guys push that aside like it’s nothing. We split a road trip. I know we lost to an Indiana team that’s probably not going to be in the playoffs. … We had a poor third quarter. I had a unit in there (in the fourth quarter) that was very competitive. We didn’t get it done like we did in Toronto. So our team is working hard. They’re good character guys. Like all teams, every once in a while they need a kick in the pants and motivation and positive thoughts. I don’t know where that [rumor] comes from. [The media] just puts it out there: ‘The team’s not listening.’ They’re full of crap.”

Actually Eddie, the fact that your team followed up a good win with a bad loss is a pretty good sign you’ve lost your team. You’ve kicked them in the pants more than “every once in a while” this year. I think you’ve lost them.

Naturally, the Sixers got blown out by the Bobcats, which caused Martin Frank of the Delaware News Journal to write that it was Jordan that was “full of crap” for saying the Sixers played hard. Yikes.

Meanwhile, 76ers fans over at SB Nation’s Liberty Ballers are asking whether this is the worst coaching change in franchise history. While several other first-year 76ers coaches have won fewer games, Jordan Sams writes that Jordan ranks right up there among the worst because of the relative lack of roster changes.