What is Brett Brown’s Future With the Philadelphia 76ers?

Brett Brown’s future with the Philadelphia 76ers is largely unknown, but he may have a better chance at sticking around than people think.

Brett Brown, at the moment, is a fairly respected head coach around the league. Despite compiling a record of just 47-199 over the course of his head coaching career so far with the Philadelphia 76ers, he has been resilient in keeping a good attitude and a positive outlook on running what has been handed to him.

What has been handed to him has been awful. Perhaps some of the worst basketball players of recent memory have all ended up on the same roster, and that roster has been the one that Brown has been tasked with leading. It’s a tough job, but Brown has done it with a smile on his face and a passion from his game. The losing hasn’t taken a toll on him, or at least he doesn’t let it show.

Brown, who learned under the San Antonio Spurs’ highly respected head coach Gregg Popovich, is seen as a potential great coach, given the right assets.

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Despite the generally accepted idea that Brown is a good coach, his future with the Sixers is very much uncertain. Brown was brought in to lead this team by Sam Hinkie, the president and general manager of the team that has recently stepped down from his former position. Hinkie also gave Brown a nice contract extension this season before stepping down.

It’s worth noting that Brown’s contract extension was given to him shortly after Jerry Colangelo (former Chairman of Basketball Operations) was hired. That’s not clear cut proof that Jerry liked Brown, but he certainly would have lobbied harder to keep the executive team from offering him that extension if he had a major issue with Brown. The extension was offered to Brown just four days after Colangelo’s hiring was announced, so there’s a good chance that Colangelo was not too involved with team functions at that point, yet.

Jerry Colangelo pushed Hinkie out, we are fairly certain of that. So, the question that must be asked is whether or not the coaching and administrative personnel that Hinkie hired will go as well, or if newly named president and current general manager Bryan Colangelo will keep those pieces around for his chapter of the Sixers’ rebuild.

Consider this, though — Colangelo might not have ever cared about dismissing anyone other than Hinkie. Was Brett Brown, Scott O’Neil (the team’s CEO that was brought in around the same time as Brown) or anyone else standing in Jerry’s way of giving his son a job? No. Every legitimate move that Jerry ever made with this team was an act of undermining Hinkie, the sole person holding the position he wished to hand over to his son. Jerry never made any moves that would suggest that he was interested in taking away the pieces of Hinkie’s radical rebuilding process. He only made moves to take out it’s curator to make room for Bryan.

I’m not buying the narrative that Colangelo hated Hinkie and wanted everything about his rebuild gone for his son to start fresh. If anything, that would have been foolish. Bryan now has an easier task ahead of him, because Hinkie got all of the nitty-gritty work done, and leaves Bryan with a lot of pieces to work with. One of those pieces is Brett Brown.

Mike D’Antoni was hired as an associate head coach partway through this season, and that was a hire clearly orchestrated by Jerry Colangelo. If Brown is fired, D’Antoni is the likely candidate to take over. I would like to see the Sixers interview more candidates if they are going to fire Brown, but considering that the team reportedly only interviewed two candidates for the open Hinkie position shows me that there are agendas in place.

This new plan from Bryan is one that we have yet to see take shape. With new plans often come new personnel to carry out the vision. But maybe that isn’t the case here.

What we need to realize is that just because Jerry had certain agendas, does not mean that his son’s agendas are on the same path. Maybe Bryan’s plans for the team don’t stray too far from Hinkie’s. Maybe he actually really admires Brown and the spirit he coaches with. Perhaps he’s willing to offer Brett a shot at running this team, just like Hinkie was.

Bryan would not have been considered for this job if it was not for his father. His father got him the job, and his father likely gave him some words of advice for running the team moving forward. Now, however, Jerry has stepped down from his former made-up position and has little affiliation, and likely little interest in what happens next with the team.

Bryan can run the team how he sees fit. And if he looks around, there is no better coaching option for this team right now. Scott Brooks has already been interviewed by several teams and Tom Thibodeau has signed with the Wolves. If the Sixers were going to make a change, they should have fired Brown weeks ago.

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Is Brown’s job safe? No, far from it. As reported by reputable outlets, it looks like it’s a 50/50. If Bryan would like to make a statement, though, and stray from the ideas that his father seemed to hold about the team, then he would be smart to keep Brown on, and even endorse him as the coach moving forward. The Spurs organization has produced many great coaches, and I believe it would be best to let Brown see the rebuilding process come full circle. Let’s see what he can do with some true talent. If he can win 47 games over three seasons with awful basketball players, who knows what he can do with some stars.