The Sixer Sense
Fansided

Brett Brown is the real superstar of The Process

By Myles Stedman

PHILADELPHIA, PA - OCTOBER 6: Brett Brown of the Philadelphia 76ers looks on during the game against the Boston Celtics during a preseason on October 6, 2017 at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA, PA - OCTOBER 6: Brett Brown of the Philadelphia 76ers looks on during the game against the Boston Celtics during a preseason on October 6, 2017 at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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Throughout The Process’ highs and lows, Brett Brown has been the Philadelphia 76ers‘ one, shining constant.

For the first time since 2012, the Philadelphia 76ers are fancied to make the Playoffs, and it’s been a long time coming.

In fact, the last time this team played postseason basketball, not only was no one on this current team playing for Philadelphia, but only three players were playing in the NBA at all – Amir Johnson, J.J. Redick and Jerryd Bayless.

It’s been six years of constant change for the 76ers, as they continue to search for a group who can take them to the promised land, but the one constant throughout ‘The Process’ has been Head Coach Brett Brown – the unheralded superstar of this team.

Brown has been the staple of sanity for the Sixers through all the losing, and has provided the measured and experienced head required to focus on the organisation’s goals, and lead a team attempting a difficult task of a full draft rebuild.

Philadelphia 76ers
Philadelphia 76ers /

Philadelphia 76ers

To his credit, the first-time NBA Head Coach knew what he was getting into, and as such, requested a four-year contract in order to properly help set The Process in motion. His contract has since been extended until the end of the 2018-19 season.

Those signing off on Brown’s contract have not made his job any easier. The team drafted centres in his first three seasons as Head Coach, injured centres in his first two.

It took us two full seasons of injuries for us to finally see the team’s great hope, Joel Embiid, and in his rookie year, the Cameroonian castle was denied playing with 2016’s number one overall pick Ben Simmons, due of course to injury.

To Brown, this has mattered little, and credit to the 76ers for keeping faith in him.

For the past five years, his job has been to take what talent he does have, get the best out of them, and help mould them into NBA players, and men, whether it be the entertainingly enigmatic Embiid, or cup of coffee Sixer Adonis Thomas.

Brown’s role has been part-coach, part-father, a hard enough task for any professional sporting team, let alone one which “achieved” a 28-game losing streak in 2015.

The 56-year-old has certainly had the good fortune of a top-line assistant and development staff, but it is a credit to the him almost no former Philadelphia player has left with a poor taste in their mouth, throughout four years and 253 losses.

To quantify what you’ve read, with the 76ers, Brown has built perhaps the first wonder of the sociopolitical world, a man-managing and player development job almost unparalleled in sports in the past five years.

However, to pinhole Brown’s influence as not extending beyond the court of the Wells Faro Center would be incorrect. He has also had to balance the will of the franchise with what’s best for the team.

Some have confused this for being an ineffectual or unknowledgeable Head Coach. However, what they’re seeing is merely Brown again doing his job.

As a coach, it may seem his job is to win every game he can, but the focus with the Sixers is always the macro and never the micro.

If Brown has the opportunity to try something that may make the team better in the future, he’ll absolutely put the present’s win on the line to do so.

This requires an outlook greater than one’s own ego, and it’s what makes him the perfect Head Coach for this team.

This has never been about Brown’s ego, though. This was not a job coveted by many, certainly not the easiest job with which to set up one’s Head Coaching career. In fact, many of Brown’s peers attempted to dissuade him from a potential career suicide.

However, Brown identified a fantastic opportunity to bring to both a team of players and a historic basketball organisation what he had learned in roles with the San Antonio Spurs and Australian national team.

Brown came to the City of Brotherly Love to complete the most selfless task in sports, an arduous and thankless role of teaching a team built through the draft about the world of professional basketball.

The job he has done with this team over the past half-decade will never show up in the record books or on Basketball Reference. It won’t appear in the win-loss column, and it’s not enshrined on his fingers (for now).

However, as Philadelphians come together to celebrate a team of infinite potential the fans themselves have long deserved, while we cheer for Embiid and Simmons, let’s also applaud the man on the sidelines who has lived this slog every day.

Over five years of basketball, we’ve seen almost 70 different 76ers, with many more to come.

At the end of the journey, it will only be 12 who hopefully earn a trip to the NBA Finals, but Brown helped shape every single one of those 70 plus careers on his mission to build a championships team.

Next: 5 storylines to watch after the Sixers' first week

Thank you Brett Brown for everything you’ve done, and will do, for this team on their journey to a championship. You’ll never been worn as a jersey, or win an MVP award, but you’ll always be the most important member of this team.