Seasoned basketball man Rod Thorn becomes Sixers president

LONG AGO and far away, way down in West Virginia and another era, Rod Thorn was a good basketball player. A very good player with an unusual two-handed jump shot. Daily News columnist Stan Hochman called it a "Thornderbolt."

Since then, Thorn has played in the NBA, been a general manager, been an executive in the league office, teamed with Ed Stefanski to help the New Jersey Nets go to the Finals twice. In 46 years, there probably isn't anything, Eddie Jordan's coaching job here last season notwithstanding, that he hasn't seen or done.

That brings us to yesterday, which was something of a lightning bolt. Just after Ed Stefanski had re-established himself by drafting Evan Turner, hiring Doug Collins as coach and trading Samuel Dalembert, the Sixers organization crackled with the news that Thorn, 69, was the new president. Stefanski, who had been president and general manager, will remain as the GM.

Go through the sequence: Stefanski came to the Sixers in 2007 from the Nets to replace Billy King. King surfaced in New Jersey in July as Thorn's successor. Thorn is here now, splitting duties with Stefanski. They were a successful team with the Nets and, Thorn insisted, they will be again. Never mind that Thorn's contract, said to be more than 3 years, is longer than the 2 years left on Stefanski's deal. Never mind that Thorn already agreed to remain as a consultant when his reign is finished.

"There was a lot of speculation that I was retired," Thorn said. "I wasn't retired. I was retired from the Nets. I was never retired."

Thorn said that, after 10 seasons, he knew it was time to move on.

"No nefarious reasons, no smoking guns," he said. "Just a personal decision to do that."

He was gone from the Nets, but not from the game.

Thorn laughed heartily at a story that, when King replaced him in New Jersey, King laughingly suggested that Thorn should go to the Sixers.

"I don't specifically remember that," Thorn said after yesterday's news conference in the Hall of Fame Room in the Wells Fargo Center. "But life is funny. Avenues open up that you never thought about, that you didn't consider. All of a sudden, things happen."

All of a sudden, Thorn was leaving the Nets, despite what he termed a lucrative offer to remain under their dramatic, new ownership of Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov. Just like that, Peter Luukko, chief operating officer of Comcast-Spectacor, suggested that it might be a good idea to call Thorn, just to see.