As Miller and Ratliff didn't phone ahead to request dispensations, their no-show status raised yet another cloud over a team still in a fog following Thursday night's ugly, season-ending 114-89 Game 6 playoff loss to the Orlando Magic at the Wachovia Center.

Given that Miller and Ratliff become unrestricted free agents on July 1, their failure to appear at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine might be construed as signals that they're already looking for the exit and the opportunity to continue their NBA careers elsewhere. Or maybe they got caught up in a really bad traffic jam after forgetting to bring along their cell phones.

"They're part of the team," said DiLeo, who noted that he and Stefanski tried, without success, to get in touch with Miller and Ratliff.

Did DiLeo have any idea why Miller and Ratliff had, in effect, boycotted the final team function before the players scattered?

"You'd have to ask them," DiLeo said.

Ratliff, a 14-year veteran, might well have talked his way out of town in any case, having taken veiled shots at the taciturn DiLeo after the Magic, playing without suspended superstar Dwight Howard and injured shooting guard Courtney Lee, shredded the listless Sixers in an elimination game that Stefanski described as a "clunker."

"You have to step up and get into guys," Ratliff complained. "If [as the coach] you don't have that type of personality, to be able to go at guys . . . You've seen the mistakes and all that going on. Was anybody getting talked to about that?"

Stefanski said he was "disappointed" in Ratliff's comments while DiLeo said he "didn't agree" with them.

"We do hold players accountable - maybe not to [Ratliff's] definition of accountability," DiLeo said.

Of more immediate concern is the future of Miller, the 10-year veteran who averaged 21.2 points during the Magic series and is the only true point guard on the roster.

"Do we want Andre back? I've said over and over we'd like to have Andre back," Stefanski said. "But if Andre doesn't want to come back, he's an unrestricted free agent. That's his call."

Other important calls belong to Stefanski, and maybe to DiLeo, enough of them that this offseason should be more than a little interesting. The Sixers are already over the 2008-09 NBA salary cap of $56.68 million and management would rather have flaming bamboo shoots placed under its collective fingernails than to take on more big salaries that would push the team past the current $71.15 million luxury-tax trigger point.

The first order of business for Stefanski is deciding whether DiLeo, who moved from the "ivory tower" (Stefanski's term) of the front office to the sideline as the interim successor to the fired Maurice Cheeks on Dec. 13, will continue as head coach.

DiLeo said neither he nor Stefanski had met to discuss his role.

"I'm going to take some time off, step away a little bit," said DiLeo, who added that family considerations would be a factor in any decision he might make. "At some point Ed and I will talk."

Ratliff's discontent aside, several players voiced support for DiLeo as a coach who did a commendable job, all things considered.

"I think Tony did well with what he was handed in the middle of the season," said Donyell Marshall, a 15-year veteran and soon-to-be-unrestricted free agent. "We were, what, 13-20 [when he took over]? We went on a seven-game win streak. We were 14-4 over one stretch. We had our ups and downs, like any team, but I think he did what he was supposed to do."

There will be some roster tweaking, but not a wholesale makeover. Stefanski said every Sixer , including young building blocks Andre Iguodala, Thaddeus Young, Marreese Speights and Lou Williams, conceivably could be traded. But any totally new look probably would be the result of the draft (where a perimeter player with three-point shooting range will be targeted) and free agency. Salary-cap constraints, however, preclude the sort of major splash made when Stefanski signed power forward Elton Brand to a 6-year, $80 million contract on July 9.

Inconsistent starting center Samuel Dalembert, increasingly a target of disgruntled fans, could be moved, although his unwieldy contract (two more seasons for $23 million, with a 15 percent trade kicker) probably ensures that he'll return.

Brand, who played in only 29 regular-season games because of a variety of injuries, gets a second chance to make a swell first impression. Center Jason Smith, who missed the entire season following reconstructive knee surgery, also should be healthy and could take a big bite out of Dalembert's minutes, and might even displace him in the lineup.

"I feel that I can work hard and compete for that starting spot," Smith said.

Stefanski also might have to mollify Iguodala, the team's leading scorer, who believes he has earned the right to have input into any decision-making.

That's a lot of intrigue for a team that went 41-41 in the regular season, the very definition of mediocrity and the figurative midpoint between terrible and terrific.

"The taste of [Thursday's blowout loss] is going to be in our mouths for a little bit," Stefanski conceded. "But we're going to get over it as an organization. We do like the nucleus of players that we have here." *