Jerry Just Fixed It
And so, when Ish Smith faced free agency, he was confident that the team would make him an offer he couldn’t refuse. That offer didn’t come.
"“I wanted to be back here, to be honest with you,” he said. “I just didn’t know what was going on.”There was no negotiation [with the Sixers],” Smith said. “I’m just going to leave it at that.”"
And so, the season began for Ish Smith as a New Orleans Pelican, and for the Sixers with seven prospects whittled down by Brett Brown to four. The story may have ended there, if not for the team majority owner Josh Harris stepping outside of the box to bring form Phoenix Suns owner and general manager Jerry Colangelo into the fold as executive chairman of basketball operations. From that moment in time, while everyone outside of the organization sought signs of a power struggle, of a shift in the road away from Sam Hinkie’s strategic master plan and towards a more tactical focused design of Colangelo, Jerry Colangelo did what nobody expected.
He served the team needs.
Brett Brown needed a point guard. He could not focus on mentoring an entire team and growing a full-fledged one from the roster seeds handed to him by Sam Hinkie. Each new player, from Isaiah Canaan, to T.J. McConnell, to Kendall Marshall, to Tony Wroten, tried to carve a name for himself out of the point, but the closest the team got was inspired and unexpected play from undrafted Arizona point guard McConnell, who could create plays with assists, but whose timidity failed to score enough to threaten defenses.
The point guard position required too much of Brett Brown’s attention, and without an assistant, the team’s development was taking precedence over the on-court results.
1-30 was the result.
ALSO ON SIXER SENSE: Part I: Position Analysis of Brett Brown – Center
But Colangelo was more than a figure-headed executive to calm the media perception that the Philadelphia 76ers were playing poorly. He wanted to make it right, to fix the team. To do so, he asked “how can I help?” of overburdened head coach Brett Brown. And so, the familiar tale of two second round picks for the former point guard to return is history. Right now, Ish Smith is filling the point guard spot as competently as the wildest hopes of the team could have imagined. Some see him as the savior for the team. Some see the role of Ish Smith as hopeful, but too soon to tell what long term role the man will play going forward. But undeniably, the team has taken on a new persona from the moment he took the helm. Almost overnight, the team has transformed into a scrappy fiesty never-say-die opponent to even the best team in the NBA. Point guard Ish Smith has done everything asked of him so far. But what will he bring to the team next year? That is where minds part ways.
Next: Tomorrow Is Today