The last part of the mini-series focuses on which Sixer Coach of the Year winner was better. Our two candidates are Dolph Schayes and Larry Brown. Larry Brown is a Hall of Fame inductee for his coaching. Schayes is not in it for coaching but as a player who was one of the first stars of the NBA and Sixers.
Schayes played his entire career with the Sixers. I almost said he played his whole career in Philly but that’s not true. He played for the Syracuse Nationals who later became the Philadelphia 76ers. He was a 76er though after the transition. Now I’m talking about him as a player and you may be asking why I’m not going over coaching. Well when the team moved to Philly, he was their coach AND player. Back in the day, quite a few players were also the coach of that team. It’s not like that has gone away either. Players do some coaching sometimes. I’ve seen current players sometimes take the clipboard away from the coach and draw something up themselves. It’s just that back then, it was their job to do so.
Anyway, that year was 1963-64. But Schayes won the Coach of the Year in 1965-66, a year before they won the championship. They went 55-25 which was big improvement from the previous record of 40-40. But Schayes was done coaching for the Sixers after that. Why was the Coach of the Year absent. After some research I was actually surprised to learn that there are two possible factors in why Schayes was given the boot. #1 is that Schayes was kind of like a pushover who didn’t really take control of the team. But, Chamberlain may have had a hand in the firing too. Back when Schayes was playing, he and Chamberlain had their meetings on the court. And, according to Chamberlain, Schayes did some “trash talking” and so he did not care to listen to Schayes as a coach.
Schayes couldn’t get out of the first round of the playoffs in 1965-66.
Larry Brown had his own problems with a superstar, Allen Iverson. But, in 2000-2001 he won the Coach of the Year award. He’s also won that award 3 other times but that was in the ABA. In this series, we’ve talked about an award winner that won his award at the end of this season. Allen Iverson MVP, Aaron Mckie Sixth-Man, and Larry Brown Coach of Year. The best player, best player off the bench, and best coach. Oh, and by the way, Dikembe Mutombo won Defensive Player of the Year award too. Still couldn’t win it all. But in 1999-2000, the Sixers went 49-33. There wasn’t much of an improvement between those years. Still Brown stressed defense and surrounded the best scorer in the league with top defenders like McKie and Mutombo. Most of the team was just a bunch of role players and yet they were tops in the East. How did Brown do it? Sure he had the MVP but it still takes great play-making to get to a 56-26 record. a most recent example of one star doing the work would be LeBron James. He carried the Cavaliers to the finals but they lost to the Spurs.
My Choice: Larry Brown. Schayes had stars on his team like Billy Cunningham, Hal Greer, and Chamberlain plus a few other all-stars. Brown had just Iverson and a bunch of role players, although Mutombo was a key factor in their run that season. Schayes had it more easy than Brown.
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Ok so that’s that. I’m going to try and put more stuff up. Maybe talk a little bit about the NBA lawsuits against the NBPA. I wrote an article about it here. Basically:
"David Stern and the NBA have filed two lawsuits against the NationalBasketball Players Association. Why? Because the Player’s Union was “unfair” intheir negotiation and they were not in “good faith”. The other lawsuit is tostop the Player’s union from decertifying themselves."
At least football is back, and I see the Eagles made some nice moves. Should be fun. Wish the Sixers were in that same position.