Philadelphia 76ers: Can Brett Brown coach on Brad Stevens’ level?
By Uriah Young
Brett Brown is going to try and outcoach Brad Stevens in round one of the 2020 NBA Playoffs. Does Brown have what it takes to lead the Philadelphia 76ers to victory?
The coaching journeys of Brett Brown and Brad Stevens have been very different. Just look at how they started.
At the turn of the century, only a year after Brett Brown won his first NBA title with the San Antonio Spurs as an assistant, Brad Stevens accepted a job to work at Applebee’s. Let that sink in. Instead of working at Applebee’s, Stevens ended up working at Butler University for their basketball program. Not even a decade later, as Brown would rack up several more rings alongside Gregg Popovich, Stevens climbed the ladder within the college coaching ranks and found himself leading two Butler teams to back-to-back NCAA championship appearances.
Ultimately, Brown’s ring accumulation decade will forever be tethered to the tutelage of Popovich, while Stevens seemingly became a Jedi master overnight without a Yoda or Obi-Wan Kenobi. These few aspects of how these coaches launched their careers raise this question on the eve of a Philadelphia 76ers- Boston Celtics series — can Brett Brown coach on the same level as Brad Stevens?
There’s more to unpack before conclusions can be drawn. Let’s examine the performance and records of both coaches.