Brett Brown’s Questionable Coaching: Bad Lineups, Or Strategic?

Brett Brown has been known to pull out a ton of different lineups over the course of this season. Is this bad coaching, or simply strategic?

Philadelphia 76ers head coach Brett Brown is now the longest tenured Philadelphia sports coach, out of all the major sports, despite the fact that he has brought in a winning percentage of just over 20% through nearly two and a half seasons so far. He’s had a “get out of jail free” card, so to speak, because of the clear tanking the front office is behind, that has set Brown up with teams that were destined for failure. Despite that, some fans are questioning his coaching, especially this year. Even fans who are well aware that the losing is far from being his fault.

I’m not one to question Brown on a lot of things. I understand that he has been given an impossible task, and he does it well. That task? Go out, coach this team like you would coach a championship level team, and try to develop these players in-game even though many of them are far from being at the level of their competitors.

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We see him have a fire with this team before, after, and during games, but on the occasions we’ve been able to see glimpses of practices, it’s incredibly clear that Brown doesn’t coach this team looking at the record. He’s up to the task. He knows a lot of these players won’t be here for all that long, and he doesn’t care. He still wants to develop them to the best of his ability while they are on his team, and he wants to succeed at the highest level possible given what he’s got.

Now, success, especially in the realm of the Sixers, can be defined a numerous amount of ways. There’s the obvious tell-tale sign of success: winning games. That has not happened for the Sixers, as they’ve lost as many as 18 in a row this year.

The other type of success regarding the Sixers is that of development. We hear that word a lot when talking about Brown. “He’s a terrific developmental coach!” is often the credit he’s given. And that certainly might be true. That could be the source of one of my problems with him–the messy, sloppy, and unexplainable lineups.

Although it entails much more than just starting lineups, that’s a big part of it. Brett Brown has played around with, tweaked, and thrown out–as of the game Thursday against the Atlanta Hawks–20 different lineups through 38 games, per Bob Cooney.

That’s largely due to the several injuries this team has had to face throughout the season, but still, 20 different starting lineups is a lot.

Lineups throughout the game is where it gets even scarier. Brown has thrown in very weird combinations of players, that really don’t make much sense. This has often been seen as bad coaching. I’ve seen instances during games where Brett has put a lineup out on the court–an obviously ugly, much too small lineup–and called a timeout a minute or two later to adjust. It seems like he should have seen his lineup wasn’t satisfactory before he put it on the floor.

This would all honestly be, not that bad if it was in the several times we’ve seen “garbage time” come up this season, late in the second half when the Sixers are down by 10 points or more. Instead, a lot of these mind-boggling lineups have come when the Sixers were competitive in the fourth quarter, which just adds to the idea that maybe Brett Brown might not be head-coach caliber.

Some have raised the observation that this could, in fact, be strategic. I kind of see the point here, as at times I think, “he has to be throwing any chance of winning away with this lineup.”

Knowing that the team won’t be competitive this year, is it worth it to go all out every game? Or is it more valuable to put players in different lineups, different positions, and different scenarios to develop them further for later seasons?

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I see the value in it, but I can’t say I agree with it. Game time is game time. Game time is incredibly serious. Games are where you’re showing your boss in the weekly meeting, “here’s what I did this week.” That shouldn’t be the time to experiment and say, “okay, let’s see where this goes.” The experimentation seems like something that should be done during practice.

In the end, I get it. This team was not meant to win, and Brett Brown experimenting during games isn’t the worst thing–and no, it’s probably not an exact analogy to compare it to a presentation in front of a boss or investor–but at the same time, I want to see some seriousness from Brett Brown. I want to see this team compete in games late this season, and it wouldn’t hurt to put their best foot forward with some smart lineups.