The Philadelphia 76ers have not played a basketball game since March 11 when they defeated the Detroit Pistons at home. Shortly after the final buzzer sounded, the league went into an indefinite suspension due to the global coronavirus pandemic.
The NBA has dropped some inklings that the season could be close to a return as a decision will be made in the coming weeks on the 2019-20 season. When or if the season does return, the goal for the Sixers remains to win a championship with the roster that they have. Therefore, coach Brett Brown does not want his guys to use the pandemic as an excuse not to be in top shape whenever the season does resume.
“To not use any of this as an excuse,” said Brown on Friday via a zoom call. “That is the messaging that I have with my staff, our players that when it’s go-time, we’ve got to go. We are hunting to still contend for a championship. That hasn’t changed.”
They are currently the 6 seed in the East and have not lived up to expectations, but they still feel confident in their ability. The team still believes that they are built to succeed in the playoffs.
“As it sits, in my coaching world, this thing for me is so incomplete,” the coach explained. “We had our starters for 19 out of 65 games, I think that this team was built for the playoffs. Like every team, you’ve got some not fortunate injury situations. We get we need to be better on the road, we weren’t. We were dominant at home and somewhere in the middle, I felt like everything was pointing to us landing the plane, getting good health, and letting that environment be judgment day.”
No matter what happens, Brown would like a few weeks for his players to get some conditioning work in. He would like, at minimum, three weeks for players to get back their fitness base back before they go out there and play legitimate basketball games again.
“I feel like somewhere in the 3-week as the minimal window is the duration, the timeframe I’m hearing the most,” he added. “I think the notion of how do the players come in influences everything. The 3-week thing I think can be achieved provided the fitness base of the players coming in is at a standard that I’m saying that it needs to be. With that backdrop, I feel comfortable you can guarantee to go play basketball again.”
Whenever the season does resume, the fitness base will be on Brown’s mind the most. The players who have continued to work out during this time off will catch his and the rest of the coaching staff’s eye. The whole point of it is to make sure that this will be not used as an excuse and that they will be ready to go when the time comes. [lawrence-related id=31032,31021,31014]