The Sixers have new owners. Lots of them.
On Tuesday at the Palestra, with championship banners hanging in the background, the new honchos held a press conference. There are 14 of them. I think. I stopped counting after I realized there are now more owners than players. Will Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, are among the new investors, but the people you really need to know for the moment are Josh Harris and Adam Aron.
Harris is the Managing Owner, while Aronwho went to Abington Highwill serve as CEO. Harris graduated from Penns Wharton School of Business and both attended Harvard Business School. Both were prominently featured on Tuesday and did the majority of the talking on behalf of their partners.
Among the things Harris and Aron revealed: Ed Stefanski is out as general manager. Rod Thorn and Doug Collins arent going anywhere. And the new owners think the fans, and Im paraphrasing here, are super swell and should come on down and take in a basketball gameyou know, if and when basketball games are played again.
In an attempt to increase attendancethe 76ers were 25th in the league out of 30 teams last seasonaround 9,000 tickets will be discounted, some by as much as 50 percent. Some lower-bowl seats will be sold for as little as 29.
We are slashing, Aron said, and I mean slashing ticket prices.
It was a good start, even if it sounded a little like a used car commercial without the requisite everything-must-gothis-is-craaaaay line. Thats not a knock. The new owners seem obviously and rightly committed to re-engaging a fan base that can be charitably described as largely indifferent.
NBA
What can we do to put you in a Sixers jersey today?
We have a lot of work to do, Harris admitted. We need to develop an open relationship with the fans and the media.
To that end, a website has been set-up - www.newsixersowner.comand fans are encouraged to go there and submit their thoughts and suggestions. Aron said he would read each one personally.
It was at that moment when I expected someone to come charging across the stage and tackle Aron while screaming nooooooo like in those worn-out movie scenes where one guy takes a bullet for the other, less-suspecting character.
You have to wonder if Harris and Aron know what theyre getting into with the Sixers. They are evidently bright, successful businessmen. But there is so much the Sixers need to correct before the franchise can be considered a true contender.
Thoughts and suggestions? I suspect the fans will have plenty, few of them kind.
This is an organization that has won just one playoff series over the last decade. The team may have pushed the Miami Heat to five games during last years postseason meeting, but the Sixers finished with a 41-41 regular season record and havent had a winning campaign since 2004-05.
Prior to the lockout, the Sixers would have had approximately 55 million committed in payroll for the 2011-2012 season. A significant chunk of that was budgeted for two players: Elton Brand (17 million), who had a good season a year ago but isnt quite the superstar he once was, and Andre Iguodala (13.5 million). It is no secret that Iguodalas relationship with the city is strained, or that some fans and media long ago called for him to be traded.
And so you wonder, with the stalled labor negotiations freezing everything in place, will Iguodala eventually be dealt or will he remain in town once basketball begins again? What does Brand have left? Can Evan Turner develop into a top-tier NBA talent, or did Stefanski and the out-going regime overvalue him? Will Jrue Holiday be a premier point guard in the long run? And what can they expect, if anything, from big men such as Marreese Speights and first-round draft pick Nikola Vucevic? Above all, how far from winning a title is this crew?
At least Harris and Aron (and all the others) have Thorn and Collins to handle the on-court issues. The rest will be on the owners, and it wont be easy.
As a coldif somewhat ridiculousre-introduction to Philadelphia and the things some of us chose to care about around here, Harris was (figuratively) pinned down in the press conference by WIPs Howard Eskin. Earlier, Harris mentioned that he will still lives incue ominous musicNew York. Eskin responded like a radio talker and a provincial Philadelphian (which is probably redundant) and essentially made Harris reiterate that, yes, the new Sixers Managing Owner will live inre-cue ominous musicNew York.
Sensing that some Philadelphians might not be too keen about that, Aron stepped in for his partner and noted that Harris is just 65 minutes away by train. I guess he can afford the Acela, which is nice. Aron tried to say something else about Harris, something I suspect was meant to further deflect all the nasty New York nonsense, but his microphone kept cutting out.
Hardhearsayingor understand.
There was Aron, trying desperately to connect with the fans and the media, only to be thwarted by malfunctioning communication equipment. Thats some serious and awkward irony.
No, this will not be easy for the new owners. Not at all.
E-mail John Gonzalez at jgonzalez@comcastsportsnet.com