Tonight, at Disney/ABC’s Times Square Studios in New York City, the 76ers will discover their draft-night fate. They'll know the draft slot for their pick and New Orleans', and whether the Pelicans retain their selection or owe it to the Sixers as compensation for a trade last summer.

The Sixers find themselves pinning their hopes on the ping-pong balls of the NBA’s Draft lottery for the 13^th time in its 30 years of existence. Here’s a look at the mathematical odds for the Sixers’ pick in relation to particular slots in the draft:

(AP)

No. 1 … 19.9 percent

No. 2 … 18.8

No. 3 … 17.1

No. 4 … 31.9

No. 5 … 12.3

In addition to their lottery selection, the Sixers hold the rights to New Orleans’ first-round pick – assuming the Pelicans don’t win the lottery and land anywhere in the top 3. Here’s a breakdown of the Pelicans’ statistical odds in the lottery:

No. 1 … 1.1 percent

No. 2 … 1.3

No. 3 … 1.6

No. 10 … 87.0

No. 11 … 8.9

No. 12 … 0.2

No. 13 … 0.1

Other notes on the NBA Draft lottery:

• The Sixers hold potentially two lottery selections: theirs and New Orleans’. The Pelicans’ pick is top-five protected, so if they “win the lottery” and land in one of the top-three picks, they would retain it. The Sixers would be owed a top-five protected, first-round selection for the 2015 draft as future compensation.
• The Sixers’ draft-lottery representative will be Julius Erving. Last year, it was majority owner Joshua Harris.
• As the Sixers’ good luck charm, Dr. J will bring with him shards of glass from a backboard broken by Darryl Dawkins during a Dec. 5, 1979 game against San Antonio. Cherry Hill native Jake Spencer, the holder of the glass bits, had his entry selected during a team contest in conjunction with 97.5 FM The Fanatic.
• Only four times has the team with the league’s second-worst record won the lottery. The last occurrence was in 2009, with the Los Angeles Clippers. The Sixers finished with the league’s next-to-last mark, at 19-63.
• Only once have the Sixers won the lottery. That was in 1996, when they moved from No. 2 to No. 1 and selected Allen Iverson.

(Christopher A. Vito)

76ers owner Joshua Harris has made a statement in advance of a Tuesday press conference called by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, during which Silver is expected to address racist comments that have been attributed to Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling.

“Without question, discrimination in any form is unacceptable and has no place in the National Basketball Association or anywhere else in society,” Harris said Monday, in a statement issued by the Sixers. “The comments were hurtful and outrageous, and in no way reflect the values and beliefs of myself, our ownership group or the Philadelphia 76ers organization.

“I am confident that Commissioner Silver will undertake a thorough and thoughtful investigation into the matter.” 

Silver is expected to meet with reporters Tuesday regarding Sterling, allegedly of whom a partial recording was leaked to entertainment website TMZ and later, in full, to Deadspin. Sterling has denied that the voice on the recording is his. (Audio of the blatantly racist comments can be heard here.) The first-year commissioner, Silver is said to be seeking quick action on the allegations, which would seem to be in compliance with requests from the NBA’s players union.

(Christopher A. Vito)

76ers owner Josh Harris covered a lot of ground Sunday in his State of the Sixers address, including offering a response to fans who questioned his purchase last month of the NHL’s New Jersey Devils and what impact that would have on their team.

Check out Monday’s Delco Times for a full report, but for now, here are a few select snippets:

On expectations for the 2013-14 season: “We’re really putting the pieces in place to build a strong foundation for a consistently winning, championship-winning team. That’s been my goal. I’ve kind of always had that vision and now we’re doing it. I’m very excited about where we are.”

On Andrew Bynum: “Sometimes in sports, there’s an element of randomness. Going for Andrew Bynum was the right decision because it’s very tough to get a player of that caliber. We did a bunch of work and his health problems ended up being much worse than we thought, than anyone thought. The decision was fine. I’m a big boy. We’re big boys. We’re adults. We made a decision and it didn’t work out. I’m not discouraged.”

On his purchase of the Devils: “I understand if you are born and bred and live in Philadelphia, I can certainly understand that you’re an all-Philly fan. And so I acknowledge that. My answer to the fans is, you know, I love the Sixers in Philly. I’m committed to it. I have personal ties in Philly through my mom and in Newark through my dad. The fact that I also own a hockey team in Newark doesn’t change at all my commitment to the city, the Sixers and basketball. I’m here, on a Sunday, with my family. I’ve been at the games. I’ll be at the games. The number of hours I’ve spent putting in place Scott and Sam and Brett was enormous. I’m totally focused on the Sixers and won’t change one iota how driven I am to make this team a championship team.”

On whether he favors basketball or hockey: “I love both sports. Historically, I’m more of a basketball fan.”

On focusing on next year’s draft: “There are many ways to acquire good NBA talent. Certainly the draft is one good effective way. There are other ways – there’s free agency, trades. Andrew Bynum, we did not draft. I think we’ve shown we will spend and be aggressive when we see opportunities. … We’re going to position ourselves for all of those opportunities and take advantage of them aggressively. That certainly showed last season. We spent a lot of money and didn’t have a lot of results. We’re big boys. And we’ll do it again if we see the right opportunity.”

(Associated Press)

NEW YORK – Ask Josh Harris where he thought the 76ers would be slotted in the NBA's draft, and he would've told you 11th. Doesn't mean he held out a sliver of hope they might've been picked higher, though.

“Expected value,” said Harris, the Sixers' owner. “I figured when I came here, we had a small probability of being super happy and a small probability of being sad, and I had neither. We were right where I expected to be.”

The odds were long that the Sixers would move into the top three selections of the NBA draft. And that's exactly how the draft lottery at ABC Disney Studios played out, with the Sixers – the league's 11th-worst team – getting slotted the No. 11 choice for the June 27 draft.

The Sixers had only a 2.9-percent chance to slide into one of the first three choices, and a  90.7-percent chance they would remain at No. 11. Of course, it remained possible they also could fall into picks Nos. 12 through 14, so all things considered … not bad.

“This is pure luck,” Harris said of the lottery.

Washington didn't win the lottery, so to speak, but the Wizards were the night's big winner. The league's eighth-worst team climbed to No. 3, while Orlando – which finished with the worst record in the NBA – was leapfrogged by Cleveland for the top pick. The Magic ended up with No. 2.

For more on the Sixers and the NBA draft lottery, including the team's impending free agency decision on Andrew Bynum, pick up Wednesday's Delco Times.

NEW YORK -- A few notes from the Millennium Broadway Hotel on Times Square, the site of the 2013 NBA draft lottery:

PING-PONG BALLS. The Sixers have eight ping-pong balls out of 1,000, which means the 11th-worst team in the NBA this season has a slim chance of moving up. Here are the odds:

• 0.80% chance for No. 1
• 0.95% chance for No. 2
• 1.15% chance for No. 3
• 90.74% chance for No. 11
• 6.28% chance for No. 12
• 0.08% chance for No. 13
• 0.0001% chance for No. 14

RECENT HISTORY. The Sixers have participated in 13 of the league's NBA draft lotteries, which is in its 29th year. In the previous 12, they've stayed at their projected pick five times, moved up six times and dropped only once. Their last go-around here, they went from No. 6 to No. 2 in 2011, when they took Evan Turner.

FACES IN THE CROWD. NBA commissioner David Stern will speak to reporters at around 6:45 p.m. Sixers owner Josh Harris will represent the team when the draft lottery commences, at around 8:30 p.m. It'll be televised live on ESPN.

BYNUM UPDATE.  Harris said the Sixers plan on keeping Andrew Bynum, a free agent this summer, in their offseason plans ... but admits he has not spoken to Bynum or his agent, David Lee. “Our basketball people are in touch with (Bynum) all the time,” Harris said.

COACH SEARCH UPDATE. Yes, Harris would like a coach in place as soon as possible, but he said the Sixers are proceeding cautiously in an attempt to find "the right coach." Added Harris: “It's an important decision,” he said. “If you get the right coach really fast, that's better. But at the end of the day, you want the right coach. We're not putting a time deadline on it. Doesn't work to your advantage because the reality is we have a lot of talented coaches on the staff right now. Some of them have been head coaches, so we're trying to get the right coach, not to get a coach quickly.”

(Getty Images)

With a quizzical look on his face, Josh Harris tried to understand the question being lobbed his way. And find a way to answer it. The query was about Andrew Bynum, so Harris had to approach this one delicately.

Harris was being asked whether there was anything the Sixers could reclaim from the Bynum situation, the one in which they spent $16.5 million for zero minutes played from the big man.

“Sunk cost,” Harris said. “That’s all sunk cost.”

In business-speak, that’s money a business will never get back. Harris and new general manager Sam Hinkie spoke at length about Bynum, their unrestricted free agent center, at Hinkie’s introductory press conference Tuesday at PCOM. And whether they can hope to get anything from him next season.

Mainly, the conversation hovered around the Sixers’ involvement with Bynum this offseason.

Hinkie, an analytics guy, is all about the process by which decisions are made as opposed to the outcome of those decisions. Calculated risks sometimes backfire. But if the process is employed, taking into account traditional basketball know-how plus beyond-the-box-score logic and other related metrics, they’re almost viewed as acceptable losses, Hinkie said.

That’s why Hinkie lauded Harris for his approach to the Bynum trade, and his willingness to say he'd make the trade again if given the chance. Hinkie didn’t rule out ending the Sixers’ relationship with Bynum.

Bynum, 25, missed the entire season with bilateral bone bruises in both knees and underwent season-ending surgery in March. The Sixers own Bynum’s Bird rights, which means they can sign him for more years and more money than any other team in the league. That, Hinkie said, makes Bynum appealing.

“I don’t think there’s anything else to be said about the trade,” Hinkie said. “I suspect this makes me boring, but I think of Andrew like the thousands of other young men walking around the world that are unrestricted free agents that have the potential to play NBA basketball, and he is one of those. I am duty-bound to consider and look at them.

Read more »

The 76ers have agreed to terms with Sam Hinkie, who will become their general manager and president of basketball operations, and the team could make his hire official as early as next week, according to a league source.

To make room for Hinkie, and expedite their search for a new head coach, the Sixers have cut ties with general manager Tony DiLeo. According to a league source, DiLeo – who had been with the organization for 23 seasons – will not remain with the Sixers in any capacity.

Hinkie comes to the Sixers on a multi-year contract believed to be at least three years, a league source said. Hinkie had worked with the Houston Rockets for the last four seasons as their vice president of basketball operations while serving as an advocate for analytics within the organization.

The Sixers are believed to have sought Hinkie last offseason before promoting DiLeo. They had to wait until Houston had been eliminated from the playoffs before initiating discussions with him, but negotiations proceeded quickly. Hinkie, according to a league source, was the Sixers' “only target” for the general manager position.

The Sixers have been without a head coach since Doug Collins resigned April 18, the day after the team's regular-season finale. It's believed they have narrowed down a list of candidates to fill the post, but it seemed peculiar that they would allow DiLeo to lead the coaching search while his contract was set to expire July 1. And Sixers owner Josh Harris didn't exactly give DiLeo a ringing endorsement during Harris' end-of-the-year press conference.

With Hinkie in place, the Sixers can move forward in their search. Harris has said he would like to have a coach in place by the June 27 NBA Draft. The reported list of favorites for the job, according to another league source, remain the same: Brian Shaw, Indiana's associate head coach; Michael Curry, the Sixers' associate head coach under Collins; Mike Malone, Golden State's top assistant; and Jeff Hornacek, an assistant with Utah.

DiLeo had been with the Sixers for the last 23 seasons, serving as interim head coach, assistant general manager and vice president of basketball operations among other jobs, before assuming the GM duties last summer.

It was believed DiLeo had spent the season being groomed by outgoing Sixers president Rod Thorn, who would be transitioning into a consultant's role with the team. Instead, DiLeo is out of a job.

(Associated Press)

Well, it's official.

That sentence applies on a couple levels. Here are the more pertinent ones:

• The season is over. Yeah, you knew that already.
• You knew this, too: Doug Collins officially resigned Thursday in a press conference at the team's practice facility, ending his three-year tenure as head coach and beginning his five-year run as an adviser to Sixers owner Josh Harris.
• The Sixers – in case you didn't want to believe it – will look into signing free-agent center Andrew Bynum in the offseason, Harris confirmed. The owner said he and the team have not ruled out going after Bynum, saying the ownership group knows just about everything they need to know about Bynum's bum knees, which is somewhat of an advantage in the negotiating process, Harris said.

Before his presser had ended, Collins made sure to put in his endorsement of
Read more »

(AP)

PHILADELPHIA – Doug Collins' time on the 76ers' bench is up.

Collins told the 76ers' ownership group Sunday night that he will not return to coach the team for a fourth season, according to a league source who confirmed a Yahoo! Sports report.

It's believed that Collins and the Sixers are working toward an amicable arrangement  regarding the final year of the coach's contract. The Sixers' ownership group would prefer that Collins, who is owed somewhere in the vicinity of $4.5 million, stay on board in some capacity with the franchise for which he also played.

The future for Collins had been under fire for the last week, after a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer made it sound as though ownership would prefer if Collins stepped down. Collins had refused to comment on it, saying he would speak to Sixers owner Josh Harris at the conclusion of the regular season, April 17 at Indianapolis, before making any decisions.

Guess that's an unnecessary conversation at this stage.

After the Sixers' 91-77 victory Sunday over Cleveland, John Langel – Collins' agent – told reporters that the coach will be “here for another year.” What a difference a few hours make, with Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski first reporting that Collins' days in Philadelphia are numbered following this season.

Collins has guided the Sixers to a 33-47 record, with his team failing to meet the lofty expectations laid out before them after acquiring All-Star center Andrew Bynum in an Aug. 10 trade. Bynum never played, missing the entire season with balky knees, and the Sixers spiraled.

The Sixers have gone 108-119 under Collins.

Collins, 61, has never coached beyond three seasons in any of his previous NBA stops: Chicago, Detroit and Washington.

If the Sixers aren't in Collins' future, he has a couple options.

His son, Chris, was hired away from Duke last month to become the new head coach at Northwestern. Doug Collins' roots are in Illinois, which could present an alluring opportunity. Collins also could return to his broadcasting career, something he did between head coaching stints.

Collins' departure also means that members of his coaching staff could be headed out the door.

Michael Curry, the Sixers' associate head coach, is head coach material and was a top candidate for the vacancy in Orlando last offseason. Brian James, Collins' top assistant coach, is expected to join Northwestern's staff with Chris Collins, who played for James in high school. The others are good guys who likely will be without jobs – Aaron McKie, Jeff Capel and Monte Shubik.
Visit Christopher A. Vito's Sixers blog at delcotimes.com for more coverage.

(AP)

Jrue Holiday said it all day Wednesday. From a.m. shootaround to p.m. postgame, Holiday made it clear he wanted to stay in Philly and a contract extension prior to the midnight deadline was what he wanted.

Holiday got his wish.

"It’s Halloween. You never know what’ll happen," Holiday said.

According to multiple sources, including ESPN's Marc Stein, Holiday and the 76ers reached an accord last Wednesday night and just under the midnight cutoff. Stein is reporting that the extension for Holiday equates to four years, $41 million.

A source told the Daily Times the Sixers "made a deal right before the deadline." Specifics other than those reported by Stein were unknown.

Had the Sixers not gotten a deal done with Holiday, they would've had a chance to make a qualifying offer sheet for the fourth-year point guard after this season, but Holiday at the least would've been a restricted free agent. If he signed the offer sheet for the 2013-14 season, Holiday would've been an unrestricted free agent in 2014-15, and the Sixers certainly didn't want that.

“You know, honestly, I want what I want,” Holiday said, prior to the Sixers’ season opener with Denver.

Holiday had said all day Wednesday that he had a number in his head --- and what he wanted was reportedly near $14 million per season --- and that he wasn't willing to budge much. But he also expressed a desire to stay with the Sixers.

The deal, just under the deadline, accomplished that.

"There are two hours and 17 minutes left -- an eternity in the 'deal' business," Sixers owner Josh Harris told Daily Times columnist Jack McCaffery after the season-opening win.

(AP)

This is an excerpt from Daily Times columnist Jack McCaffery's blog:

With time running out for the Sixers to prevent point guard Jrue Holiday from becoming a restricted free agent at the end of the season, owner Josh Harris sounded something less than convinced that a deal would be done.

"It's a work in process," Harris said.

His gut?

"I don't want to speculate," he said. "I don't want to speculate."

The Sixers have until midnight Wednesday (into Thursday) to sign Holiday to an extension. If not, he would become a restricted free agent at season's end.

Before an 84-75 victory over the Denver Nuggets, Holiday assured that he would prefer to remain a Sixer. Reports are, though, that he wants as much as a $10 million a year raise from the $2.7 million he will earn this season.

The timing was favorable for Holiday, who was the difference Wednesday, making three important plays in the final four minutes to blunt a Denver rally. Without a replacement point guard of Holiday's skill and experience, the Sixers might not be able to afford his entry into free agency.

"The way we are going to approach all of this stuff is to try and make smart decisions," Harris said. "We really like Jrue. We would like to have him around. But I don't know what is going to happen. I hope it works out. But if not, he will be around certainly all season and hopefully beyond that. We'll have to see."

Said Harris, not long ago: "There are two hours and 17 minutes left, an eternity in the 'deal' business."

Check out my column on Holiday in the Daily Times Thursday and, as always, on delcotimes.com