Lost in rotation, McConnell not ready to ‘pout’
NEW YORK >> Brett Brown was asked to coach an NBA program designed to lose, to last four years with failed talents and sore veterans and players with minor-league skills.
He could not have survived that alone.
He knows he could not have survived that without T.J. McConnell.
“He’s been with me for a long time,” Brown said. “He’s experienced a lot with me, with us. And I respect him.”
McConnell was the undrafted point guard from Arizona who made it through the 2015 summer league, won an NBA job, then never went away. By last year, he was surfacing as a reliable key to the Sixers’ rebirth.
A passionate defender who will, as Brown said, “gnaw your leg off,” the Pennsylvania high school legend was also developing as a spectacular passer. When he uncorked 17 assists in a game in Boston, many from along the baseline, he was likened to one of the NBA’s greatest playmakers. Routinely during practice, whenever he’d concoct another fine pass, teammates would yell out, “Nash.” McConnell, long a Steve Nash fan, appreciated the compliment.
Brown was dragged into a conversation about McConnell Sunday before the Sixers’ 122-97 loss to the Brooklyn Nets. He thought he might, considering that McConnell had not logged a minute in either of the previous two games, home victories over the Clippers and Pistons. By then, there was no mystery why a player who was vital to the Sixers’ growth to a 52win team last season was seeping deeper into the rotation.
Brown has been nothing if not transparent during a six-year coaching survival exercise, the one he has called, “an interesting life.” He is a coach, but also a franchise employee who reports directly to the owner. For that, Brown willingly chose to use this season not just to win games, but to establish a stronger organizational foundation. That, he decided, was best done by giving Markelle Fultz every opportunity to show why the Sixers made him the No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 draft … or, maybe, to reveal why the whole thing was an idea gone horribly wrong.
Either way, Brown was going to find out.
Either way, there was going to be some fallout.
As it has happened, at least early, McConnell has been one of those professional casualties.
After averaging 22.4 minutes last season, the fourth-year pro had averaged 14.8 through the first 10 games of this one. But one early ripple of the Fultz experiment has made it even more difficult for Brown to re-commit to McConnell: The revelation that if Fultz is going to be an NBA value at all, it is will be as a point guard, and only as a point guard.
While Brown has started Fultz off the ball with Ben Simmons at the point, that lineup cosmetic lasts no longer than five minutes. After that, whenever Fultz plays, it’s almost exclusively as the lead ballhandler. To a point, it has worked. Fultz has deceptive baseline-to-baseline speed and an ability, with his long arms, to unfold at the rim and finish.
Will it work for the entire season? Maybe. Is it a little painful to Brown that he has had to try and make it work at McConnell’s expense? “It is,” he said. “It is. He’s in a contract year. He is a tremendous example for the things that we value, a tremendous teammate. Look at what he does now when he doesn’t get in the game. He is Markelle Fultz’s biggest fan and he’s a tremendous teammate on the bench. And he has sacrificed in order to allowing us to coach Markelle Fultz and try to grow him.
“But from a human standpoint, it is disappointing. He’s one of my all-time favorites.”
McConnell will have chances. Nor has this been the first time he has been made to prove his worth.
“As a competitor, it’s hard,” he said, before logging four late minutes Sunday. “But I have to continue to be a good teammate and work hard and practice and just get better and stay in shape. So I’m not going to pout about it. I’m just going to be ready when my name is called.”
He’s not going to pout. But there is another point guard in that operation who might, should pointguard minutes be distributed not on merit but in some cockeyed experiment. No names necessary, but if that complaint comes, it likely will be in an Australian accent.
It’s not to that point yet. And McConnell, the son of a famously successful high school coach, is not about to cause a stir in November. After all, he was all but lost in the rotation late last season, but only until Fultz was so atrocious in the playoffs that Brown had to give him another chance.
McConnell did not make much by NBA standards through his first three seasons, earning $525,000, then $875,000, then $1.47 million this season. He’s earning $1.6 million this season, but is not signed for 2019-2020.
McConnell, yes, wants to be a good teammate. But the NBA is a business.
“Well, I am aware that it is my contract year and it adds importance to this year,” he said. “But I am not in the business side of basketball. I’m just here to play basketball. So I think that’s out of my hands and out of my control.
“I sound like a broken record, but I just focus on what I can control, and that is to just get better every day and be a good teammate. But obviously it adds some stress that it is a contract year. But you can’t control that.”
That much, Brett Brown appreciates. That’s why it pains him whenever he has to use a rotation that yields a “DNPCoach’s Decision” next to McConnell’s name.
“It’s a long year,” Brown said. “Things play out normally the way that they should. In the last few games, they have not. And I am aware of that.”
He’s aware. He’s unapologetic. After so many years, he’s not real happy that he has had to be a little of both.