Sixers Search For the Elusive Mr. Right

Now that Jay Wright has reassured us of his sanity by removing himself as a candidate to succeed Tony DiLeo, the Sixers' search for a more generic "Mr. Right" continues, perhaps with the help of eharmony.com. While from a PR standpoint, the Villanova coach would be a dream choice, there is no reason to believe it would have made much difference in the won-lost column. College coaching has little more in common with the NBA than with the Iditarod.

For nearly a decade, the Sixers have gone through coaches the way Elizabeth Taylor went through husbands but the team would been better served if they had stayed with one low-profile professional. I would not presume to speak for Ms. Taylor.

The importance of NBA coaches tends to be exaggerated. In most cases, they make only a marginal difference. Look at the surviving coaches in the playoffs right now - Karl, Van Gundy, Brown and Jackson. Have they been indispensable to their teams' success? Hardly. Denver became a contender the day they unloaded Iverson for Billups. The tipping point for Orlando and Cleveland was adding solid role players for their franchise players, Dwight Howard and LeBron. There was no brilliant strategizing by George Karl, Stan Van Gundy or Mike Brown.

The Lakers attained championship caliber when they managed to acquire Pau Gasol at a fire sale. Even Phil Jackson concedes that his team's effort is uneven. If the Zen Master himself has trouble motivating his troops, what hope is there for mere mortals like Randy Ayers, Jim O'Brien, Mo Cheeks, Tony DiLeo, Kurt Rambis, Dwane Casey, Eddie Jordan or Tom Thibodeau?

The real issue is team personnel and the Sixers' roster right now is loaded with riddles a super computer couldn't solve. Those personnel issues would have persisted, but Cheeks' replacement with "don't call him interim coach" DiLeo and the Elton Brand imbroglio were major distractions that resulted in more questions than answers. Of course, the franchise must name a coach reasonably soon to address the player issues in conjunction with the front office. But if they think that if they sift through enough sand, they can find the one man capable of leading them to the promised land, they are on a fool's errand.