Philadelphia -- Maurice Cheeks is out as the Philadelphia 76ers head coach.

In a somewhat surprising Saturday afternoon move, general manager Ed Stefanski fired Cheeks with the Sixers floundering at 9-14 and in the basement of the Eastern Conference's Atlantic Division.

Director of player personnel, Tony DiLeo, will take over the top spot on an interim basis.

As recently last season, when speaking about Cheeks' new contract extension, Stefanski said, "We are excited about the future under his direction."

Then, in the offseason, the Sixers bolstered their youthful, athletic roster with frontline cornerstone Elton Brand, who is leading the team in scoring (15.9) and rebounding (10.0) but is significantly short of his career scoring average and has already missed time this season because of injury.

The expectations were high for a team that won 40 games and took Detroit to six games in the Eastern Conference quarterfinals last season.

Cheeks did not meet them. Friday night's 88-72 loss in Cleveland, the team's seventh in nine games, was apparently the last straw. Cheeks is the fifth NBA head coach to be fired this season.

The member of the Sixers' 1982-83 NBA championship team started his head coaching career in Portland, where he finished with a 162-139 mark and a pair of playoff appearances.

He guided a transition in Philadelphia from the Allen Iverson era and won more games than expected last season behind a rising star, Andre Iguodala, a young frontcourt led by Samuel Dalembert and a veteran presence at point guard, Andre Miller.

Miller is averaging 15.5 points per game this season, but Iguodala is averaging just 14.9 points per contest, a drop of five points per game from last season. Dalembert is down almost five points per game (5.8 ppg) and just over two rebounds (8.0) per contest.