Does Brown Connect Philadelphia 76ers to Ben Simmons?

We had made the connection before, but Brett Brown is almost family to Ben Simmons. Does that persuade the Philadelphia 76ers to choose him over Brandon Ingram?

Relationships.

It’s a word that means different things to different people. To Bryan Colangelo, it means the daily interaction with players and staff – giving them a moment of your time, tossing friendly “how’s the family?” questions, and relating to people in the workplace on a more personal level.

But to Brett Brown, it means a little more, as he revealed in a recent interview by John Finger of CSNPhilly.com:

"This is the real story behind it. Ben Simmons is the son of someone I coached for four years,” Brown said. “I was his dad’s assistant coach when I was with the Melbourne Tigers and his mom was the head cheerleader and then here comes Ben Simmons. David Simmons was from Harlem, New York. He could have been a linebacker, he could have been a prize fighter. He was a basketball player more out of athleticism and girth than he was out of finesse and skill. He was a tough, tough 6-8 and hard like an Anthony Mason-type player. His son is finesse and a 3, 1, 4, really different.You go to Dante Exum of the Utah Jazz and I coached Cecil Exum who played at North Carolina for Dean Smith with Michael Jordan on the same team [as David Simmons]. Then Dante was born. But Cecil was my export, and then later Drederick Irving was my import, and then along comes Kyrie, born in Melbourne. It was cool and it was American and it had this different merchandise to it and the funky highlights and young kids were playing on the streets and there was no snow so you could play it every day. It had a real American feel and then the marketing people went bananas with the promotion of the sport and the glamour and beautiful cheer girls and all of that. Then the glitz and the American side of street ball came in. Then there was an African-American flavor to it that captured the country. They brought in some Americans who were just so gifted with the ball, and that captured the imagination of the Australians in the middle 1980s.” – Brett Brown describing the history of the basketball craze in Australia"

Now the connection of Ben Simmons and Brett Brown was already public knowledge, and we had illuminated that fact in an early article about the mutual benefit of Ben Simmons ending up on the Philadelphia 76ers. Now with this deep connection and relationship, the Ben Simmons to the Philadelphia 76ers is taking on a stronger likelihood.