Philadelphia 76ers: Can Brett Brown coach on Brad Stevens’ level?

Further Along

By their third year, Stevens had won 48 games, and Brown came close to tying the NBA season loss record and won only 10 games. How was Stevens able to outcoach Brown with a player under six feet tall as the focal point of the Celtics offense and, at the same time, have the fourth best defense in the league in 2015? Al Horford had not even arrived yet in free agency. What made Stevens’ ascent so much faster?

The softball pitch answer to swing at would be Danny Ainge’s front office decisions compared to Sam Hinkie’s tank mode. That argument is flawed though, because around the same time that Boston started adding more stars to their roster, so were the 76ers. Joel Embiid, J.J. Redick, and Ben Simmons all started playing together the same year that Kyrie Irving and Al Horford were brought to the Celtics.

More recently, the 76ers did win the season series against the Celtics this year, 3-1. It seems that the matchups during the regular season favored Brett Brown’s game design. Yet, head-to-head, when it mattered most, Stevens flexed his basketball mind in the 2018 playoffs and handed Brown a bag of embarrassment to carry home while Boston advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Clearly, Brad Stevens is a more creative coach who develops players and systems better than Brett Brown. It is as simple as that. Yes, Brown has more championship rings, but the consistency of Stevens’ winning percentage as a professional coach is far better than Brett Brown’s. Stevens connects with his players better and maximizes their abilities on defense and offense.

Brown struggles to develop players and place them in positions to be successful, as we have seen with the regression in Ben Simmons’ statistics and Markelle Fultz’s fractured psyche. Would Jimmy Butler and J.J. Redick have stayed to play for a coach like Brad Stevens? Would Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum have blossomed under Brett Brown? Both hypothetical questions could definitively measure the overall effectiveness of each coach. We will never know in either case, but one could easily speculate based on the track record of Brown versus Stevens.

At the end of the Sixers-Celtics series, coaching will have been a significant factor. Before game one tips off on Monday evening, the question still stands — can Brett Brown coach on Brad Stevens’ level? I don’t think so. As a result, the Sixers’ season will again end in disappointment and Brown will be out of a job. At that point, who knows? Maybe he can be an assistant with the Celtics?

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