Tony Dileo

The 76ers took the floor against the Washington Wizards under new coach Tony DiLeo for the first time last night at the Wachovia Center. First-year Sixer Elton Brand scored a season-high 27 points and the Sixers snapped their three-game losing streak with a 104-89 victory. Earlier yesterday, team president and general manager Ed Stefanski announced the dismissal of Maurice Cheeks after three-plus seasons with the Sixers. Among the reasons Stefanski gave for the change was to give the team a fresh face and new perspective.

The 76ers yesterday promoted Tony DiLeo to senior vice president and assistant general manager, and made Courtney Witte director of player personnel. Billy King, the team's president and general manager, also said Kevin Johnson has been hired as head trainer and John Tooher named assistant trainer. "These moves complete the reshaping of the basketball operations department," King said. "Tony and Courtney have been an integral part of our off-season player moves for many years.

The 76ers started meeting yesterday with candidates they might select in the June 29 NBA draft. The Sixers have one top-11 lottery pick, the position of which will be determined in the draft lottery on Sunday; the 20th overall pick, which came from Utah in the Jeff Hornacek trade, and their own second-round pick, which falls at No. 33. First in yesterday was Dickey Simpkins, a 6-foot-9 forward from Providence, who has played well in...

Florida State forward Al Thornton, who was supposed to work out for the 76ers yesterday at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, pulled out with a sprained ankle. The 6-foot-8 Thornton has rescheduled the workout for Monday. Meanwhile, four members of the Sixers' front office will be in Los Angeles today for a private workout by Yi Jianlian, a highly touted 6-11 power forward from China. The Sixers have three first-round picks in the June 28 draft. Yi is represented by Dan Fegan, who has set up workouts for NBA teams in Los Angeles.

Doug Collins, who will come to town later this month to settle in as the 76ers' coach, has been working the phones and the text-message system to make initial contact with as many of his players as possible. "I've reached out to six, seven guys and left messages," said Collins, who has already met with Andre Iguodala. "Every one I called got back to me within minutes. I just want them to know there's some hope in the air, and what came back to me was a sense that they're ready for some change.

The night the 76ers left for this five-game road trip, point guard Andre Miller put a number on success: three. Miller said that was how many games the Sixers should win on a Western swing that consisted of games against the Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns, Golden State Warriors, Sacramento Kings and Portland Trail Blazers. The Sixers met that goal last night by posting a 114-108 overtime victory over the Blazers. Essentially, Miller believed the Sixers should grab the two winnable games - against the sub-.

Eleven games remain on the 76ers' schedule. The Sixers know each one will be similar to a playoff game, especially tonight's contest against the Detroit Pistons at the Palace at Auburn Hills. Not only are the Sixers immersed in their own playoff-seeding hunt - racing against the Miami Heat for the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference - but the Pistons are in the eighth and final playoff spot, only 2 1/2 games ahead of the Charlotte Bobcats. After winning seven of their previous nine games, the Sixers lost to the Bobcats, 100-95, at home Friday night, dropping to 37-34 and slipping to sixth place behind the Heat.

Samuel Dalembert went out to the court to test his sprained left ankle about an hour before last night's game against the New Jersey Nets at the Wachovia Center and declared himself fit to play. He started, and it was obvious that his gait was slightly affected. He played almost 15 minutes and scored two points. The 6-foot-11 center suffered the injury during the second quarter of the Sixers' 104-94 victory over the Washington Wizards on Friday and did not play again. For his trouble, Dalembert was hit with a three-second call after going down in the lane.

An MRI exam conducted yesterday on the right calf of 76ers guard Andre Miller revealed a strain, and he is officially listed as day to day with the team set to visit the Miami Heat tomorrow. The injury, which Miller suffered during the third period of the Sixers' 101-89 loss to the visiting Denver Nuggets on Wednesday, could end the veteran's streak of consecutive games played at 501. That is the NBA's longest among active players. Tayshaun Prince of the Detroit Pistons is second with 465. Miller was unavailable for comment after the team practiced yesterday at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, but coach Tony DiLeo and guard Lou Williams were not counting the Sixers' playmaker out. "We'll have to wait to see [today]

The Sixers face a lot of off-season questions this summer. Tony DiLeo did a respectable job getting this team to the playoffs, but he really is not a head coach in this league. Nor should he be the head coach of the Sixers next season. As for the team, there are many issues, and I'm not sure how many can actually be addressed. The Sixers start two players who flat out are not good enough to be starters in Willie Green and Samuel Dalembert. We also rely on Andre Iguodala to be our No. 1 option, which he should not be. Iguodala should be a No. 2 or 3 option and a facilitator.

The 76ers are restacking their roster, piece by piece. On Saturday, the Sixers practiced for the second time this season. Midway through, forward Thaddeus Young, having just signed his contract and completed his physical, jumped in. News broke a few minutes later that last season's starting center, Spencer Hawes, had agreed to the Sixers' qualifying offer of $4.1 million for the season. Hawes started 81 games at center last season; he's expected to join the team for Sunday's practices.

Doug Collins does not want credit or attention, and he certainly does not want to talk about playoff seeding. Not in February. "We're getting ahead of ourselves," Collins said Friday night after a reporter asked where he would like to see the Sixers seeded in the playoffs. "Not going there. Not going there. " And he did not. But Collins is on the verge of having the Sixers relevant for the first time in a long while, and with that will come added attention and accolades, not that the 59-year-old coach is interested in hearing any of it. As the best coaches do, Collins praises his players, but he is the one who deserves the credit for taking essentially the same players who finished last season 27-55 and ran off the franchise's third coach in three years and molding them into an unselfish team.

Doug Collins, who will come to town later this month to settle in as the 76ers' coach, has been working the phones and the text-message system to make initial contact with as many of his players as possible. "I've reached out to six, seven guys and left messages," said Collins, who has already met with Andre Iguodala. "Every one I called got back to me within minutes. I just want them to know there's some hope in the air, and what came back to me was a sense that they're ready for some change.

Fittingly, the ball is in Allen Iverson's hands. Yesterday, according to a source close to the negotiations, the 76ers offered Iverson a non-guaranteed contract for this season. The deal is on the table; only he has the answer. According to that same source, the Sixers are awaiting a response from Iverson's agent, Leon Rose, and expect that answer today. Yesterday in Philadelphia, Sixers general manager Ed Stefanski met with Rose, formally laying out the offer: a prorated amount of the $1.3 minimum veteran's minimum, roughly $600,000 to $650,000, which would become guaranteed for the remainder of the season if Iverson remained on the roster Jan. 10. Before then, the Sixers could cut Iverson, who played 10-plus seasons for the organization before being traded to the Denver Nuggets in 2006, without financial ramifications.

What once seemed ludicrous - Allen Iverson returning to the 76ers - now appears likely. Yesterday afternoon in Dallas, a quartet of Sixers personnel met with Iverson; his agent, Leon Rose; and his personal manager, Gary Moore. Sixers brass present at the two-hour meeting included coach Eddie Jordan, president and general manager Ed Stefanski, assistant general manager Tony DiLeo, and assistant coach Aaron McKie. A source close to the situation said it was "just the beginning of the negotiation" but also expressed belief that it would end positively.

In many ways, this season feels like Thaddeus Young's second, instead of his third. The 76ers' starting small forward, and one of the better young players in the NBA, has yet to look comfortable on the court for more than few-minute stretches, and just when he looks like himself again, like when he went 8 for 10 from the floor against the Utah Jazz, he'll shoot a combined 7 for 25 in his next two games. Through the first month of the season, Young, learning coach Eddie Jordan's new systems, has at times looked like a still-learning sophomore - when, as a sophomore, he looked like a veteran.

It appears Donyell Marshall's first season as a Sixer will also have been his last. With the summer in its final weeks and the NBA season quickly approaching, the Sixers are putting the final touches on their 2009-10 roster. Both sides - Marshall's agent, Andy Miller, and Sixers general manager Ed Stefanski - confirmed yesterday that the Sixers' re-signing the veteran power forward did not appear to be on the agenda. "He did a wonderful job for us last year," Stefanski said.

The 76ers need a veteran point guard, but they really could use a Reggie Evans and a Theo Ratliff - reserve players the team parted company with after last season. To offset the loss of Evans and Ratliff - their relative production will be hard to replace - the Sixers are looking at 7-foot-1 Primoz Brezec (Toronto), 7-0 Aaron Gray (Chicago), 7-0 Ryan Hollins (Dallas), 6-11 Jake Voskuhl (Toronto), 6-10 Adonis Foyle (Orlando) and 6-11 Jared Reiner. Reiner, who has 46 career games under his belt in two seasons, has not played in the NBA since he was with Milwaukee in 2006-07.

While 76ers forward Andre Iguodala did a crossover and talked to a group of campers yesterday at the Flyers Skate Zone in the Northeast, team president and general manager Ed Stefanski began working on a move of his own as NBA free agency got under way. The main priority for Stefanski is to resolve the case of point guard Andre Miller, the 33-year-old, 10-year pro who has started since coming to the Sixers in the 2006 trade that sent Allen Iverson...