rzzzzz wrote:CoreyGallagher wrote:I
yes, another serious topic deserving its own thread. is Elton actually authorized to make some serious deals? and how capable a negotiator is he? outside of the moves Brett made this summer, our single deal, the big one, was giving up two relatively good complimenting starters for Jimmy. though there has been some discussion (elsewhere at least) that Harris actually took a very active role in this move, and has already indicated that he's willing to resign Jimmy for something approaching the max.
It's very difficult for me to believe that Elton Brand took the job without having "total control" or even shall I say, "final say" on basketball matters.
He's a Duke guy (I am not sure if he graduated or not but regardless, Duke is an outstanding academic place [despite my hatred for it] -- I know geniuses who didn't get accepted to Duke [although they weren't 5* athletes..) -- he's a smart, well-spoken, educated, savvy guy. He's a former #1 overall pick. He's been a max-FA before (with our own 76ers of course) and he's been in the business for years, on the court and a few years involved at higher levels off it.
Now let's contrast that with, for example, my NY Jets. These genuises hired John Idzik years back, despite never being a GM, and told him he would have to retain the current coach. This failed completely because Idzik was a moron and Rex Ryan was an egomaniac (with complaints about his lack of control of the roster, also) -- so the geniuses of the Jets hire two former NFL GMs as "Consultants" -- these "Consultants" hire Mike Maccagnan as GM, and Todd Bowles as Coach. However, note the way I said that- they hired the GM, then told him, "Just so you know, we're hiring Todd Bowles as the Coach" -- Mike Mac then had control of roster decisions but ZERO control of the field, and Bowles had zero control of the roster but total control of the field. This is perfectly shown with Christian Hackenberg -- Todd Bowles refused to play him (he literally even refused to even play him with starters in the preseason, I don't think Hack EVER played with the Jets starters, ever) even one time, and Maccagnan couldn't do anything. Nor could he fire him. They "both reported directly to Jets owner Woody and then Christopher Johnson". This is the worst situation in sports, IMHO. Unless you have a situation like the Eagles with Andy Reid, a beloved Coach with a lot of past success and is the guy with final say, and the GM knows it and accepts it (like when Howie Roseman was promoted to GM, he knew, he was being promoted by Andy Reid was the VP of the team, final say in all football matters) -- it's never going to work. I'm sure Roseman was thinking something along the lines of, "Who cares?! It's a huge promotion, it's a lot more money, responsibility, and power, and we'll make it work because I've already been here 10+ years, I know Andy Reid, etc." ---- The Jets were total opposite, and still are. They are my team but they're fools. It came out yesterday that they basically hired Gregg Williams as the DC before they hired a coach, and were telling coaching candidates, "We're going with a guy for the DC job, are you ok with that?" Rhule said absolutely not, Adam Gase was fine with it, just let me be the HC and offensive guy, no problems!
These situations never work in the end, IMHO. And Elton Brand is a smart guy, and known commodity. If he didn't get the 76ers GM job, he would have been able to get a GM job across the league in a year or two's time. He knew that. It would literally shock me to find out he didn't get "Final Say" on basketball matters. Now surely, if he was going to trade Ben Simmons, I am sure he would need to run it past both the coach and certainly the owner(s). But it's hard for me to believe he'd need the "sign-off" to trade next year's pick for Noah Vonleh or to sign Dario to the full MLE etc.
