The Philadelphia 76ers are coming off a really tough 2019-20 season where they did not come anywhere close to the expectations they set out for themselves. A season such as this one brings a lot of changes to an organization that is starved for a championship.
The first domino to fall was coach Brett Brown who was fired on August 24 after seven seasons in Philadelphia. However, the team did not want to stop just there as general manager Elton Brand signaled a front office adjustment saying that he would like more basketball minds in the organization.
Brand said in his press conference:
“Since I’ve taken a deep dive on where we failed, what went wrong, and how we get better, I felt like we need to strengthen our organization from top to bottom and that starts with the front office,” explained Brand on Tuesday. “Balancing our strengths with analytics and strategy with more basketball minds.”
Now, according to a report from The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Keith Pompey, the Sixers will not be bringing back Alex Rucker who is the Executive VP of Basketball Operations.
Pompey:
Multiple league sources don’t expect executive vice president of basketball operations Alex Rucker to be back next season. Brand has received a lot of criticism for the Sixers’ shortcomings and poor decisions. However, Rucker has been heavily involved behind the scenes in a lot of the decision-making, according to sources. Philly originally hired him as VP of analytics and strategy in October 2016 after seven years as the Toronto Raptors’ senior analytics consultant.
The Sixers are a team that does a lot of focusing on analytics, however, there comes a time where pure basketball instinct needs to take over. Rucker is also a holdover from the Bryan Colangelo era so Brand could be making a move to get more of his guys in the front office and have everybody on the same page. [lawrence-related id=37519,37516,37513]