We can nonsensically yell about rotations and play calls of the guy on the sidelines than to come to the realization that the team just isn’t good enough and the front office has not shown the ability to correct that.
I know when LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard and Giannis Antetokounmpo are leading their teams to being title favorites, there are not millions of people screaming, 'Wow look at the coach’s rotations!'
While I think Brett Brown is a very good coach, he hasn’t done a good job this season. He hasn’t made things better, or even good. I concede that regardless of whatever positive feelings players might have for him personally, they’ve likely tuned him out. I concede that outside of a surprise Bubble Finals run, his time has run out, and it’s time for a change. He’s just been here too long, through too much, it’s probably all over.
But I have some tough news for you; it’s not Brett Brown’s fault that Ben Simmons has decided that defense isn’t quite as important to him as it used to be, and didn’t take it as a personal challenge to stop TJ Warren. It’s not Brett Brown’s fault that Simmons still won’t shoot threes. Teams are out here shooting 50 threes a game and we have to hold our breath for Simmons to shoot even one. It’s not Brown’s fault the team’s only point guard options are Shake Milton, Alec Burks, Raul Neto, and Josh Richardson (situationally). Why is he playing those guys? They’re the only guards on the team.
It’s not Brett Brown’s fault that Richardson can’t really shoot, or that Tobias Harris and Al Horford are both pretty good players that are taking up the salary cap space of superstars. It’s not Brett Brown’s fault that the team opened up the season starting three power forwards and one center. It’s not Brett Brown’s fault that the proposed team leader Joel Embiid was threatening to “slap the shit” out of the starting point guard about 10 minutes into their first game back.
The roster is so disastrously constructed that the decision to save the season was to move the starting point guard to power forward, start a second round pick who is essentially a rookie after approximately ten good NBA games in two years, and move the starting power forward, who is really a center and making $100 million dollars over the next three years, to the bench. All of this just eight games from the playoffs. Read that out loud to give yourself some sense of how absurd it all is, and that this insane thing was basically clear to everyone as the right answer.
Who decided Simmons should be the starting point guard? That’s an entirely different investigation.
Additionally, the very simple fact is that while Embiid and Simmons are wildly talented, already great players, neither one of them appears to truly be at the superstar level necessary to lead a team to a title. Neither one of them passes the sniff test. I’d be willing to bet money that in time, one of the two will be that player, but it’s pretty clear that neither one is right now. There is no shame at not being there at this point in their careers, but there just seems to be a clear difference between these two players and the elite-MVP level players on title-contenders.
A basketball team is a living, breathing thing, and of course Brown has a hand in a lot of these issues in a holistic sense. In the same way that what you eat and how much you sleep can affect everything in your life, the coach should have his fingerprints all over everything. At the very least, he has not been part of the solution this season. In the same way that a fresh set of eyes can help you find your lost keys in 30 seconds after you’ve spent 45 minutes looking everywhere except the most obvious place, this team could use a fresh set of eyes and a fresh voice.
But do not allow Brown’s issues to distract you from the problems that are actually keeping the Sixers from fulfilling whatever potential they have.
Brett Brown hasn’t been part of the solution, but he is far from the biggest problem.