Starry squad brings Brown new challenges
PHILADELPHIA >> Brett Brown’s first 76ers team needed 23 players — three with real NBA ability, 19 just glad to be there, and one, probably, who sneaked through the side door and successfully managed to remain unnoticed.
He had old players whose careers were ending, young players who should have stayed in college and anybody willing to slap an autograph on a 10-day contract. And he had a mandate: Do that for a while. Do it the next year, with 25 players. Do it the year after that, with minor-league talents, injured assets and rows and rows of empty seats.
Early in his Sixers career, Brown was known to employ 16 point guards, some of whom he could remember by name, others he’d try quickly to forget. And while he once became so exasperated by the chore that he famously called many of those traveling-show temp employees a name he’d later regret, there was something pure about the whole thing. For how many coaches in visible sports history could have had so many players without a single one ever lobbing a complaint toward a microphone?
That’s not how it is with the Sixers any more.
Where once, Brown was handcuffed by turnover-makers and shot-missers, he has come to be surrounded by accomplished, wealthy, championship-minded celebrities. Where once he could lose a game and find a locker room full of players who would gladly do it all again for a small fee, he has been tasked with trying to win with players who don’t as much need coaching as they need being recognized. Always, there were reasons to X-and-O. But this season, with Joel Embiid, Jimmy Butler and Ben Simmons, and with a support staff of older and better professionals, there is the responsibility, too, to X-andEgo.
That’s why Brown sat down the other day with Embiid, not for a minute, or two, not for a half hour, but four hours, trying to find out why Embiid recently sounded off, complaining about the way he’d been used, particularly after the addition of Butler.
Complaints?
In the midst of an MVP candidacy?
Changed times. Changed. “Joel and I have been with each other for five years now,” Brown was saying Monday, before a game against the Detroit Pistons. “And he was frustrated that he didn’t play in the game. He spoke what he spoke. And we’ll move on. It’s all good. It’s all part of coaching and growing a team. And as the coach, you are always fighting for the spirit of the team, for the soul of the team. And stuff like this at times happens and you move on.”
Embiid was shaken by his boxscore line in a 113-102 loss in Toronto, when he missed 12 of 17 shots. So Brown rested him the next game, in Detroit, then excused him from practice Sunday. Said the Sixers, Embiid had a migraine. And in a team sport, those can become oddly contagious.
“People talk about it,” Butler said. “I know where his heart is, man. I can feel for him. It’s new for myself. It’s new to him. It’s new to everybody. But we’re OK. I know he wants to win. He’s frustrated. He wanted to play; Coach didn’t let him play. We need him. He’s been doing a lot on both ends of the floor for this team. As our best player, I can understand him being frustrated.
“We’ll figure out ways to make sure he’s successful.”
Butler left Monday night’s 116-102 victory over the Pistons with a strained groin in the first half.
Embiid returned from his rest game to score 22 points and Furkan Korkmaz had career-high 18 off the bench.
Ben Simmons also scored 18 points.
Blake Griffin, who has averaged 39.5 points in three games against the Sixers, was rested by Detroit. Luke Kennard paced the Pistons with 28 points.