Philadelphia ? The 76ers signed Elton Brand and Andre Iguodala to $80 million deals in the offseason and gave another $25 million to Louis Williams because they believed they could contend in the East.

When the blossoming Sixers nucleus stumbled to start the season, it was Maurice Cheeks who paid the price.

Cheeks was fired Saturday in his fourth year as coach of the Sixers, who are slumping at 9-14 a season after making the playoffs. Assistant general manager Tony DiLeo was appointed coach for rest of 2008-09.

The dismissal came hours before the 76ers were to play at home, with DiLeo making his coaching debut against Washington.

The hasty move caught the Sixers by surprise.

“They want to win and win now,” Brand said.

Team president Ed Stefanski said he fired Cheeks because the 76ers were not successfully running the fast-break, up-tempo style of play they used at the end of last season to make the playoffs.

The Sixers’ slogan is “Run With Us.” When they couldn’t, Cheeks was run out of town.

“I felt we were not progressing the way we had wanted to progress,” Stefanski said. “I didn’t feel on the floor we were executing the philosophy we wanted to have as Sixers basketball.”

Cheeks became the fifth NBA coach fired this season following P.J. Carlesimo (Oklahoma City), Eddie Jordan (Washington), Sam Mitchell (Toronto) and Randy Wittman (Minnesota).

Cheeks was one of the most popular players in 76ers history and led them to the NBA title in 1983. He was part of Larry Brown’s staff when the Sixers went to the NBA finals in 2001 and, after a head coaching stint at Portland, returned to Philadelphia in 2005.

He never had a winning record (122-152) in three-plus seasons and the Sixers were eliminated last season in the first round by Detroit. After an 18-30 start, Philadelphia won 18 of its next 23 games and wound up at 40-42, the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference.