The 2019-20 version of the Philadelphia 76ers is in the books as they finished up an overall disappointing season by being swept by the Boston Celtics on Sunday. This now brings up a lot of questions as there will inevitably be changes in this upcoming offseason.
At the forefront is coach Brett Brown who has been coach of the Sixers for seven seasons now and after years of the process, he got the team back into the playoffs. However, they have not been able to have any success and there is a high possibility that he could be fired within the coming days. That’s just life as a coach in the NBA.
Joel Embiid has been coached by Brown his entire career and Brown has stuck by him no matter what was going on off the floor. This is a thought that will always stick with the big fella moving forward no matter the decision made.
“Great guy. He’s an even better person than a coach,” said Embiid. “He cares about his players. He cares about people that work with him. It’s beyond basketball. No matter what happens, I trust management, like I said, he’s going to be a great friend. No matter what.”
In terms of the coming decision by management, Embiid wouldn’t open up too much on that, but he also understands the game of basketball is a business.
“I’m not the GM. I don’t make the decisions,” the big man added. “All I know is we’ve got a great organization, a bunch of great people. I never judge people based on basketball. I judge them based on how great or how bad of a person they are. I think in the organization, we got amazing people. From the owners to management to coaching staff, the training staff, we got a bunch of great people.”
Tobias Harris, who finally seemed to find a rhythm in Game 4 after struggling for much of this series, looked at himself before placing any blame on anybody else.
“With Ben (Simmons) going down, I think coach did a good job of rallying us up and get us going and keep our spirits up,” Harris explained. “Before anything, I take ownership of myself and trying to be a leader of this team and not being able to be successful in the playoffs. Before we go that way, ownership needs to come from an individual. I’m not going one way or the other, I got to look myself in the mirror and be better for my team and be able to lead my team in a better way.”
A decision on Brown will most likely come in the coming days, but no matter the outcome, he deserves a lot of respect for deciding to come to Philadelphia and lose on purpose before guiding the franchise to get back to respectability. [lawrence-related id=37117,37109,37102]