The Philadelphia 76ers are currently looking for a new head coach after firing Brett Brown after seven seasons at the helm. The new coach has to be able to get a handle on the team’s star duo of Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid as well as work through an awkward roster and a lot of expectations to win right away.
The Sixers have a few candidates for the job and they are big names with success in this league such as Tyronn Lue, Billy Donovan, and Mike D’Antoni. Donovan and D’Antoni will interview in person fairly soon for the job so they will have the first chance to talk to general manager Elton Brand and company.
Just as we did with Lue, we are going to list three reasons why D’Antoni would be a good fit as the next Sixers coach:
1.) Innovation
D’Antoni started this wave of small-ball in the NBA with the famed Seven Seconds or Less Phoenix Suns back in 2004-05. That Suns team led by Steve Nash and Amar’e Stoudemire made it to the Western Conference Finals and they flanked Nash and Stoudemire with the likes of Joe Johnson and Shawn Marion. D’Antoni set the tone for the rest of the league to begin gravitating towards small-ball and that innovativeness can help the Sixers enter this age of basketball.
They have a guy who can run a fast offense in Simmons who at 6-foot-10 is a blur with the basketball and he makes the right decisions more often than not at the basket. He did a good job of assisting the few 3-point shooters Philadelphia has on this roster and a guy like D’Antoni can only enhance that. Brown admitted after the season was over that he struggled with spacing on offense and D’Antoni is a guy who could find a way to make it work.
2.) Working with stars
As mentioned, D’Antoni had Nash and Stoudemire in Phoenix and then he dealt with the likes of James Harden, Chris Paul, and Russell Westbrook with the Houston Rockets. D’Antoni turned Harden into an MVP player and he also handled his ego as well as Paul’s very well. They were one win away from the NBA Finals in 2018 before Paul went down with an injury.
The Sixers need somebody to demands more out of Simmons and Embiid and put them in a position to succeed. Brown did this to a certain extent, but they could not breakthrough in the playoffs as teams made adjustments and picked up on what they wanted to do. Considering the amount of success he has had in the league, D’Antoni could be the one to get more out of the two young stars.
3.) The possibility of a roster change
If the Sixers were to hire D’Antoni, Philadelphia would probably have to change the roster. Simmons and Embiid would still be around, but the roster as a whole would not fit his coaching style. That would probably force them to trade Al Horford and at least look into moving Josh Richardson in order to look for a shooter.
The Sixers roster is not currently built to win and succeed in this age of how basketball is played. The two big men lineup does not work anymore and it was obvious on the offensive end for the Sixers. They really had a tough time making it all work on that end. A D’Antoni hire could force Brand and the rest of the front office to correct the mistakes they made in the 2019 offseason. [lawrence-related id=37700,37697,37694]