"Everyone has an ego - it's to what degree you have that ego," Stefanski said. "It could have been a lot worse if Peter [Luukko, the Comcast-Spectacor president] said it was someone else. When he said 'Rod Thorn,' like I said, he is my mentor and close friend, so we're not going to have any issue. We haven't skipped a beat.
"We had a meeting in New York and it was just like old times. We're like 'The Odd Couple' . . . We know each other's strengths and we know how to help each other."
He sat there and spoke in the Hall of Fame room, a place where the Sixers hold almost all of their organizational weddings and funerals - and try to convince everyone that it really will be different this time, that something other than the name on the side of the building is really changing.
Watching Stefanski troop into the press conference along with Thorn and Luukko, the first thought was a kind of gallows humor, wondering if Stefanski already received his new business cards with Wells Fargo Center on them, only to have to have them replaced yet again with his new title.
But listening to him talk, he was still just Eddie - basketball junkie, basketball lifer, gracious after absorbing this big public punch.
"I'm task-oriented," he said, after the press conference was over. "I put pressure on myself. I just want to do well - and when I say well, I mean wins. It's about the fans. We were going in the right direction and last year we had a setback. Now we've had a real good offseason. This just adds to it. Rod is really good at what he does.
"Because I know him, because I've worked with him, it's great. We won't miss a beat going forward. I don't see it at all."
