Billy King

Once out, it can be really hard to get back in. Billy King had lived with that NBA reality since Dec. 4, 2007, when he was replaced by Ed Stefanski as the 76ers' president/general manager. "I experienced it, the highs and lows," King said last night, after being named general manager of the New Jersey Nets earlier in the day. "Some days, I had my head up, other days I would ask myself, 'What went wrong?' But I have a good wife [Melanie] and a good family, and they encouraged me. " The backstory to King's joining the Nets began earlier this summer, when the Nets hired Avery Johnson as their coach.

Fans of the 76ers will be the first to tell you how aggravating it has been to watch their team fritter away a chance at the NBA playoffs over the last five weeks. You can include president and general manager Billy King in that group. King had observed his team lose 13 of 17 games, including embarrassing back-to-back home losses last week to Chicago and Boston, before Saturday night's 89-75 road win over the Bulls moved the Sixers into a tie for the eighth and final Eastern Conference playoff berth.

BILLY KING left the Sixers with the same class he displayed for a decade as a team executive. King, who was hired in 1997 as vice president of basketball operations and rose to become team president, was blindsided in December 2007 when the Sixers fired him and replaced him with Ed Stefanski. King had been allowed to direct the most important draft for the Sixers in a decade. He had been allowed to formulate and implement a rebuilding plan for life after a decade of Allen Iverson.

At the mere mention of youthful 76ers general manager Billy King's name, team president Pat Croce goes into the kind of rousing endorsement he once reserved for selling exercise and fitness to the slothful. "He's going to be a star," vows Croce, the conviction in his voice rising with every word. "I think he should be NBA executive of the year this year the way he has turned this team around. " When King arrived a year ago, he cut an impressive and imposing figure. Six-foot-six with a shaved head, he was smooth, engaging, articulate and thoughtful - as a student he quoted William Shakespeare to convince the Duke admissions director that he had more to offer than simply his skill as a basketball player.

Two of the 76ers' biggest deficiencies last season were defense and rebounding, so president and general manager Billy King went after the guy who is one of the best in the NBA in both areas. On the first day NBA teams could negotiate with free agents, King pulled a bit of a surprise yesterday and contacted the agent for Detroit Pistons center Ben Wallace, a four-time NBA defensive player of the year. King also called the representatives for the Sixers' three restricted free agents - John Salmons, Willie Green and Shavlik Randolph - as well as the agent for Washington Wizards swingman Jared Jeffries.

The 76ers finally know for certain that Allen Iverson won't be back for their seven remaining games this season, because of cartilage damage that causes his right knee to swell. In addition, the fans and critics of Iverson also know for certain that his knee really is ailing. Some doubters might still have a difficult time believing it, but that's the kind of strange year it has been for the Sixers' star guard. Iverson wasn't around yesterday to discuss the situation, having performed an end run away from a platoon of minicams during practice at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

The folks who paid their hard-earned money to get one more in-person look at 76ers stars Allen Iverson and Chris Webber this season - or maybe ever - didn't see a trace of either player, leading to an evening of intrigue on Fan Appreciation Night. The plot starred Iverson and Webber, who both reported to the locker room last night a few minutes before the Sixers tipped off against the New Jersey Nets. It included somewhat confused coach Maurice Cheeks, and featured angry president and general manager Billy King in a profanity-laced speaking role.

Their names hardly roll off anyone's tongue, but Billy King, the Sixers' vice president of basketball administration, can't seem to stop praising them. The names of Andy Speiser, Phil Weinberg and Kevin O'Connor were repeatedly mentioned by King when he talked about the eight-player deal the Sixers made with the New Jersey Nets last week. And if someone didn't stop King from attempting to mention every secretary, marketing whiz, clerk, security officer and public-relations employee, he'd surely rattle them off as well.

Since the curtain came down more than two months ago on a 76ers season to forget, president and general manager Billy King has been hard at work devising a blueprint for his team to give fans some hope and, yes, silence his critics as well. King has talked about wanting the Sixers to develop more of a blue-collar identity, hustling at the defensive end, diving for loose balls, being tougher than the opponent under the boards, three elements that were certainly lacking from last season's 38-44 squad.

Attendance was lagging, the team was struggling, and the relevance was dwindling. Those are just some of the reasons the 76ers yesterday made a change at the top, introducing local product Ed Stefanski as their new president and general manager before an overflow news conference at the Wachovia Center. Stefanski replaced Billy King, who had become a lightning rod for criticism. "There were a bunch of factors," Sixers chairman Ed Snider said in explaining why the 53-year-old Stefanski was named the team's 11th general manager.

It is time for a little change. For 15 years, Philadelphia's two indoor major-league sports franchises have been owned by a media company. In a total of 30 seasons under the Comcast corporate banner, the Flyers and 76ers have served their primary purpose - providing plenty of live programming for the company's cable sports channel. They have also failed to win a single championship. The Sixers' drought goes back to 1983, when they were owned by Harold Katz. The Flyers have not skated with the Stanley Cup since 1975, when they were owned by Ed Snider without the benefit of Comcast stationery.

Here are some of the team's highlights - and lowlights - since Comcast-Spectacor, with Ed Snider as team chairman and Pat Croce as team president, purchased the 76ers from Harold Katz on April 24, 1996: 1996-97: Allen Iverson was drafted No. 1 overall, won the MVP award at the all-star rookie game, set an NBA rookie record in April by scoring 40 or more points in five consecutive games, and was named NBA rookie of the year....

ROANOKE, Va. - It had been 13 years since an NBA game was played here, so the fans who came to the Roanoke Civic Center last night to see the 76ers and New Jersey Nets play in an exhibition game certainly were a bit curious. And so was new Sixers coach Doug Collins. The objects of Collins' wonderment? How well backup center Marreese Speights would play. How well his team would be able to defend on the interior. How rookies Evan Turner and Craig Brackins would respond to their first game in an NBA uniform.

Michael Vick for Kevin Kolb? Andre Iguodala for Carmelo Anthony? Easy decisions for the Eagles, sort of. For the 76ers? Well . . . A Western Conference executive told the Daily News yesterday that the Nuggets and Sixers were involved in talks that could bring megastar forward Carmelo Anthony to Philadelphia and send Andre Iguodala to Denver. The executive said that Nuggets general manager Masai Ujiri had talked with Sixers GM Ed Stefanski about a possible move.

The Sixers and New Jersey Nets have seemingly traded management recently. The rundown: Dec. 4, 2007: Ed Stefanski is hired as president and general manager of the 76ers after serving as Nets' general manager. He replaces Billy King. June 10, 2010: Avery Johnson, who interviewed for the Sixers' coaching job that went to Doug Collins, is named the head coach of the Nets. July 14, 2010: Billy King, who has been out of an NBA front office since leaving the Sixers, is hired as the Nets' general manager.

 We've been so busy here at Talkin' HQ that we missed an interesting story: Former Sixers GM Billy King netted - see what I did there? - a new general manager's gig and will now take over the New Jersey franchise. King wasn't exactly successful toward the end of his tenure in Philly. What do you think about his joining forces with the Russian billionaire and Fitzy's favorite hip-hop mogul? Seems to me the Nets are well on their way to another quarter-century of mediocrity. Subject: The King of N.J . Wow, Fitz.

1. Ed Stefanski 2. Billy King 3. Larry Brown 4. Anyone else

BILLY KING left the Sixers with the same class he displayed for a decade as a team executive. King, who was hired in 1997 as vice president of basketball operations and rose to become team president, was blindsided in December 2007 when the Sixers fired him and replaced him with Ed Stefanski. King had been allowed to direct the most important draft for the Sixers in a decade. He had been allowed to formulate and implement a rebuilding plan for life after a decade of Allen Iverson.

Once out, it can be really hard to get back in. Billy King had lived with that NBA reality since Dec. 4, 2007, when he was replaced by Ed Stefanski as the 76ers' president/general manager. "I experienced it, the highs and lows," King said last night, after being named general manager of the New Jersey Nets earlier in the day. "Some days, I had my head up, other days I would ask myself, 'What went wrong?' But I have a good wife [Melanie] and a good family, and they encouraged me. " The backstory to King's joining the Nets began earlier this summer, when the Nets hired Avery Johnson as their coach.

  Though it's not an official transaction and it took three years to complete, the 76ers and Nets, two of the three worst teams in the NBA's Eastern Conference last season, effectively have swapped general managers. New Jersey on Wednesday hired Billy King, the man Ed Stefanski replaced in Philadelphia in 2007, to be its general manager. The Nets' new owner, Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, said he and new coach Avery Johnson interviewed several candidates for the position held by Rod Thorn, who decided last month to leave the team that finished the 2009-10 season with an NBA-worst 12-70 mark.