Things are just dandy right now with the Philadelphia 76ers. Along with the fact that they are currently dealing with injuries to their two best players in Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid, there now there seems to be a controversy brewing between player and coach.
New acquisition Glenn Robinson III recently opened up on his role with the Sixers, which apparently not been made clear to him thus far, and there seems to be a disconnect between him and coach Brett Brown.
As the team gets set to take on the New York Knicks on Thursday, Brown wanted to respond and set the record straight.
“That is not true,” said Brown. “Like, with all of our players, you sit down and you go through this after [the] All-Star break every single one of them got a roadmap, this is your role, this is what we expect. One, two, I get when you have a career year on a poor team and it’s a contract year, I understand it I coached those years, myself.”
Before coming to Philadelphia, Robinson III was averaging a career-high 12.9 points and shooting 40% from deep while averaging 31.6 minutes. With the Sixers, he is averaging 6.0 points in six games with two starts on 14.5 minutes per game. He has also missed all nine of his 3-point attempts.
“In the middle of all of it, he’s a good person, and he’s trying to figure out what his next step is while coexisting in a team framework,” Brown added. “I’ve coached him before. I think that he has an important role to play here. We hope to see more of it. As I said to him, and I’ll say it again. This is a show-me league and here it is and this is what we expect and hope to see, and from time to time we have seen that. I think that he is a league keeper.”
When asked about the comments, Robinson III says it was misconstrued.
“We talked, I think some of it got blown out of proportion, but it was just really like figuring out my role here. What did I get brought here to do? How can I help this team? I understand that me and AB (Alec Burks) were brought here to help this team win and that’s what it’s about. I’ve been a winner my whole life, my whole career, so just figuring that out.”
Glenn Robinson III will start in place of Joel Embiid. The other starts remain the same. #Sixers
— Ky Carlin (@Ky_Carlin) February 27, 2020
For what it’s worth, the Sixers will start Robinson III in place of the injured Embiid as Philadelphia hosts the Knicks at 7:00 p.m. EST. [lawrence-related id=26616,26612,26598]