BullyKing wrote:As I've said before, unless Pop, Riley or Kerr* suddenly has a burning desire to coach the Sixers, you're always going to be choosing between an X and O guy or a motivational guy. With that choice, I always lean towards the guy who can motivate his players. I think of the two coaches that have won a title for Philadelphia during my lifetime (that I was old enough to remember). I hated the hirings of both Charlie Manuel and Doug Pederson. I thought both guys were dumb hicks, I admit it. The one thing both of these guys had in common is that their players would absolutely run through a wall for them. They fought for their players and their players, in turn, fought for them. Whereas supposed playcalling geniuses like Chip Kelly turned out not to be, I think the ability to motivate and lead to be a much more consistent positive attribute.
* represents the unknown college guys as its difficult to know how they would ultimately do.
I question your comment about motivation: He played Ennis only 14 minutes and Scott 11. That turned out
to be our entire bench. I can't imagine they were happy last night while we were getting outhustled on the
offensive board - 16 offensive rebounds.
That said, you've presented the problem accurately in my opinion.
So, since Brown failed utterly to develop a bench and to use the bench he had (we need to find out if it was
his call to keep Amir and Bolden on the roster if they're not capable of playing three minutes against an aging
wonder like Ibaka) and since it appears we had no game plan for our offense except to have Embiid play away
from the basket and not once, by my count, establish position in the low post), we need to bring in an offensive
coordinator who will do the X-ing and O-ing in the huddle and Brown will have to listen.
It's done in football. If we want to keep our "motivational" guy, we need to do it.
We also need to come to some sort of resolution about managing Embiid's minutes during the regular season,
what role JJ is going to play in the offense, we need to bring in a guard who can complement Ben and is quick
enough to break down the offense (that was supposed to be Fultz's role) and, it goes without saying, sign a
backup center.
Brown, if he's to remain our coach, needs support. Hopefully Jimmy will buy into that (assuming he's planning
to walk, or worse a coup, because of Brown) and Ben (who rose to the occasion in the two biggest games of his
career) will accept the changes including an expectation that he learns to shoot a short jump shot this summer.
Also, Embiid needs to assume a more traditional center role, more along the lines of Duncan in San Antonio.
Whatever Brown learned as an understudy of Popovich, it surely wasn't the sloppy turnover-riddled basketball
we watched this year. Even last night, a hard-fought and physical game, we turned the ball over 15 times, our
season average. We ranked 27th in the regular season
So, let's find a way to keep him. Our starters played their hearts out last night, partly because of him I believe.
Apropos to the above: To the poster who wants to sign Thibodeau, he will shorten Embiid's career. Just like
Brown, he's about winning meaningless games in the regular season. And with respect to the Warrior's assistant
coach: A great resume. But why would you think he'd have any more success than Luke Walton?
This is not the time to bring in a rookie. If Brown won't accept coaching "support", then I believe we let him
walk and let it be known that his successor, whoever that may be (my preference is to go after Jay Wright),
will be offered the biggest payday of any coach in the business. Start the auction at $10 mil/year. Then
you're in Popovich territory.
