Brown: Brand has value on court, too
PHILADELPHIA >> The 76ers have identified a veteran leader, and it’s a guy who is no stranger to their locker room. What’s more, Elton Brand wanted to come back here.
Monday, they lured Brand out of retirement and signed him to a free-agent deal. To make room for him, the Sixers severed ties with rookie forward Christian Wood.
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Brand, 36, played with the Sixers from 2008-12. The 16-year vet and two-time all-star announced his retirement from the NBA last August during a basketball camp at New York’s Peekskill High School, his alma mater.
While his production has dipped tremendously in recent seasons, Brand is averaging 17.4 points and 9.3 rebounds for his career.
To be clear, Brand isn’t joining the Sixers to make money or to chase a championship. He spelled out all of that in a first-person piece published Monday by Sports Illustrated’s “The Cauldron.”
Brand said he didn’t sign to be an impact player on the court, either. Instead, he’s here to lead Brett Brown’s youthful squad in other ways. Brand has long been regarded throughout the league as a team player and a guy of high character.
He wrote that Sixers general manager Sam Hinkie approached him about signing with the team. Brand called Philadelphia “my adopted hometown,” and said his “experience and wisdom” will help the Sixers — including Jahlil Okafor.
“I know I can kind of affect change and be a part of something,” said Brand, who spoke to reporters before the Sixers faced Minnesota. “I may not make it to the end, when it’s really great around here, but I can be a part of something as a player.”
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Okafor, who like Brand played at Duke, incurred a two-game suspension from the Sixers last month for his involvement in a fight outside a Boston nightclub in November.
“I’m not coming here to hold Jahlil’s hand — or anyone else’s, for that matter — because that’s not what he needs,” Brand wrote, referencing Okafor’s offcourt transgressions. “But I do believe my experience and wisdom can benefit him and my other young teammates. It’s about communication with them like men, starting to grow together, and — hopefully, eventually — winning some ballgames.”
When asked what he could learn from Brand, Okafor said it would be “whatever he can offer; on the floor, off the floor, how to be successful so long in this league.”
Brand said he hadn’t stayed in shape following his retirement announcement, other than an occasional bike ride and some yoga. But then he heard from Sixers chairman of basketball operations Jerry Colangelo about joining the team, scheduled a breakfast meeting with Hinkie, and three weeks later, he’s on Brown’s roster.
Brand, who took his physical Monday, said he’d be at the team’s practice facility Tuesday morning
He should remember how to get to PCOM. Brand spent four seasons with the Sixers, from 2008-12, after signing a lucrative free-agent deal then reported to be for five years at $82 million. He never lived up to the team’s expectations of helping them contend in the Eastern Conference and, after the 2011-12 season, the Sixers used the NBA’s amnesty clause to waive him. Brand went on to play one season in Dallas and two more in Atlanta before announcing his retirement last summer.
Brand will be an immediate veteran presence for the Sixers, whose rostered players have a collective 26 years of NBA experience.
Brown said Brand brings more value as a player than as an assistant coach.
“You wouldn’t believe what goes on at halftime when the coaching staff is in another room, and you wouldn’t believe what goes on, on the bench when you’re down by 20, and you wouldn’t believe what goes on in a player’s mind when it’s a two-point game with a minute and a half left and do they know their assignments,” Brown said. “It’s so much deeper than putting a suit on him and thinking you’re going to get the value out of him that I want to get out of him.”
To add Brand, the team waived the 20-year-old Wood. The rookie out of UNLV averaged 3.6 points and 2.3 rebounds in 14 appearances. Unable to crack Brown’s rotation, the rangy, athletic forward recently averaged 15.4 points and 9.7 boards in nine games with Delaware, the Sixers’ D-League affiliate.