After a disappointing end to a disappointing season, the Philadelphia 76ers have fired head coach Brett Brown.
What We Know:
- The team fired Brown on Monday according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. This news has been anticipated as Brown has been on the hot seat for some time now. The Sixers’ 4-0 series loss to the Boston Celtics served the final blow for Brown’s career in Philadelphia. Getting swept out of the first round is bad news for any coach, but the Sixers have fallen short of expectations all year and much of the blame has rested on Brown’s coaching.
- The 2018-2019 Philadelphia 76ers ended their season in a Game 7 loss to the eventual champion the Toronto Raptors. Although it was heartbreaking, taking the champs to a Game 7 is an honorable way to lose and it was an improvement from the previous season. The future looked bright and the Sixers came into this season looking to take the next step: an NBA championship.
- Preseason predictions had the Sixers in the top tier of teams contending for the title because they have two franchise cornerstones in Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons and the rest of the roster seemed formidable, especially on the defensive end. The Sixers certainly showed up on defense for the 2019-2020 season, ranking in the top ten for team defensive rating and seeing Simmons vault himself into the conversation for best defensive player in the league.
- However, the Sixers severely underperformed in every other aspect for the season. Even though they finished with the best home record in the league, they had one of the worst road records, only going 12-26. They only finished 6th in the Eastern Conference and were easily handled by the Boston Celtics. This is the second time in three years that Boston has sent them home in five games or less. Brown has failed to make adjustments in the playoffs against better coaches and he hasn’t been able to make an offense work for Simmons and Embiid.
- Of course Brown deserves some of the blame for the Sixers’ failures and part of it is also due to Ben Simmons’ knee injury. But part of it is the front office and ownership who gave Brown a questionable roster to work with. They failed to re-sign Jimmy Butler and JJ Redick who were key to the Sixers’ success in 2019. They signed Al Horford to a $109 million contract and he has been an awful fit next to Embiid and Simmons. They also signed Tobias Harris to a $180 million deal. Harris and Horford are fine players, but overpaying for them meant that the team didn’t have the resources to sign other good shooters and playmakers. Brown was left to coach a roster with poor spacing and players that did not complement each other’s strengths.
- Brown served as head coach of the Sixers for seven seasons and shepherded their young team through “The Process” and led them to playoff success. For his first three seasons, the team’s goal was to lose as many games as possible so they could get top draft picks. Two of those picks turned into All-Stars Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons and the Sixers switched from tanking to contending as soon as both of them took the floor together. The roster, the coaching, and the team’s health never worked out over the last three seasons and the Sixers are looking at some serious questions and big changes in the future.
LA Clippers assistant coach Ty Lue is expected to be a frontrunner for this Philadelphia position. As a head coach, he led the Cleveland Cavaliers to three straight NBA Finals appearances and the 2016 NBA Championship. Other potential candidates include Sixers assistant coach Ime Udoka and two-time NCAA Champion Jay Wright from Villanova.
