The Philadelphia 76ers are moving on after a tough 2019-20 season where they did not come anywhere close to meeting their expectations as they were swept in Round 1 of the playoffs.
The move brought a big change to the organization in the firing of Brett Brown after seven seasons as coach of the team. There were rumblings that Brown did not hold the Sixers accountable enough and that was a big reason for their failures on the season.
Philadelphia hired Doc Rivers on Thursday to replace Brown and the expectation is that he will hold everybody accountable, including stars Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid. Simmons needs to come up with a jump shot while Embiid has been criticized for not being in shape and coming up small in some moments. These are things that a coach should be able to get out of his star players and Brown did let them off the hook with those shortcomings.
HoopsHype interviewed a few executives around the league and one from the Eastern Conference praised the Rivers hire while also saying this about Brown and the way he ran things during his time in Philadelphia:
“I think he will do a better job with Philly’s culture and with Embid and Simmons,” one Eastern Conference executive told HoopsHype. “From what I’ve heard, Brett (Brown) allowed Joel and Ben to do whatever they wanted, and it really hurt the culture.”
Accountability was a big word thrown around all season and that appears to be the theme with the Rivers hire. Executives believe that Rivers is going to be the right guy to get the most out of Simmons and Embiid and another executive had this to say:
“I think what Doc does well is exactly what the Sixers need,” the executive told HoopsHype. “He will hold guys accountable and push the best players to be better. Ben and Joel need someone that isn’t afraid to tell them what they need to do. That being said, they still need to change parts of the roster.”
Time will tell if this is the move to get the team moving forward again, but at the moment, it looks it will be able to do just that. While Brown was obviously a well-liked person and he did the best he could, he was not a guy who was going to hold guys accountable if they were not doing their job. Rivers has the tools and the credentials to be that guy. [lawrence-related id=38098,38092,38088]