Philadelphia 76ers: In defense of Brett Brown
By Alec Liebsch
2. Playcalling
Often, fans find themselves micromanaging every basketball play as if it’s football. This is obviously not true, as most coaches’ work is done before and after games.
Sure, Brown calls plays here and there, and has an overall defensive philosophy in place. But when given a top-heavy roster, he mostly takes a backseat in favor of the players.
That doesn’t mean he’s not impactful, however. In fact, Brown has been instrumental in maintaining a delicate locker room.
The media has blown certain events and murmurs out of proportion, such as the discord Brown and Jimmy Butler had in January. Brown not only had to defend Butler after that story broke, but also squash any other semblance of dysfunction.
In addition, the dynamic between Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid has to be nurtured. They’re not a natural fit on the court, which makes their off-court dynamic more difficult to build up.
Both guys want to be the best player on the team, and obviously think they each are. But for now, it’s clear who is better, and Simmons must adhere to that truth (until he gets a jump shot, that is). Hell, murmurs of Simmons wanting to go to Los Angeles permeated the NBA world as recently as last summer.
There’s a lot of chaos that could potentially unfold between these two, and Brown has had to weather it all. While the additions of Jimmy Butler and Tobias Harris were great basketball moves, it would’ve been easy for them to shake the tree to a point of collapse.
In fact, it’s arguable that they did ruffle it, because the fruits that fell have created moments like this:
The tree stands firm. Brown’s work in strengthening their relationship is far more important than the result of a Redick inbounds play.