What Stefanski can't do is allow fans or members of the media to strong-arm him into changes he doesn't want to make.
If Stefanski believes in what he started, stick with it.
If he's right, fans will return to the Wachovia Center as soon as his team matures into a consistent winner.
If Stefanski was wrong from the get-go, then no cosmetic change at this juncture will be enough to save his job anyway.
The third year of a 5-year plan is the wrong time to blow things up and start over.
It can't be much fun to be Stefanski right now. It's about 2 weeks to the trade deadline, and he must decide in which direction to take his shaky franchise. Each path has easy-to-see pitfalls.
Blowing it up seems to be the public consensus, but what happens after that? Shedding such high-priced players as Andre Iguodala or Samuel Dalembert would open up cap space to enter the free-agency sweepstakes, but nothing about free agency is guaranteed.
There is a good possibility that the 2010 free-agent class, billed as potentially the best ever, might end up being average.
The big stars – LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Yao Ming and Amare Stoudemire – are on player-option contracts for 2010-11, meaning all or none could be available this summer.
I'm not sure any of them will give up his current situation unless the conditions are perfect. The Sixers don't look like the perfect situation.
Stefanski could try to make a blockbuster trade. But if he is committed to acquiring talent and not just an expiring contract, a franchise-changing trade is hard to put together. Teams certainly would have interest in such Sixers youngsters as Thaddeus Young, Marreese Speights and Jrue Holiday. The problem is their combined salaries total less than $6 million.
