All this certainty and "well, he's just on vacation" about the impending Sixers hire of Tom Penn seems criminally premature now, as the Sixers are currently interviewing Boston's Assistant General Manager Mike Zarren and former Hornets GM Jeff Bower for the second time. Based on this picture, it looks like Bower was the inspiration for the Monopoly Guy, which is quite important to GMing.
It looks like the intern who made the Andrew Bynum trade has to go back to school for his senior year. Reportedly, the Sixers were prepared to offer him a job but his parents are making him graduate. He's planning on keeping in touch with the contacts he's made over the next year and hopefully a spot will be open for him once he gets his diploma. Enjoy your last year at school, Intern.
Onto the next ones, we're obviously big supporters of Tom Penn, but it appears that snags were hit and talks have stalled. Or something. Maybe he's not a Bynum fan. I doubt it. It's probably a money thing. Zarren is an interesting name, one that has been deeply involved at the past few SSAC's at MIT. He's a Harvard grad that started off in the organization as an unpaid intern (Previous Experience) and worked his way up. The fact that he's a lifelong Celtics fan will likely draw the ire of some people who likely don't like the hiring anyway because stats are bad. Zarren evidently doesn't need school credit for this internship position.
And Jeff Bower gets a second interview. Zarren and Penn represent a new way of thinking for the Sixers brass - Bower does not. In keeping with the new Sixers Be Crazy style of making four team trades out of nowhere, hiring Bower would be a bad idea. One of the other two, please.
Missing you, Intern.