2019-2020 Sixers Season/Offseason

flyers19rw 2020-09-10 00:11:03 UTC #643

From what is being reported in various media outlets, the Sixers are a clown show. Ownership getting involved in basketball operations; the FO dictating player rotations and having infighting; coaches being totally lost as to how to manage game issues. It could be a while until this club has an act that is worth fan investment.

zambonir 2020-09-10 01:38:53 UTC #644

Not terribly different from the Phillies just last year (including the FO and even the owner dictating on-field moves), or the Flyers 18 months ago (and under Snider as well). They have an opportunity to try and fix some, though not all, of their problems. We'll see.

bigegypt0417 2020-09-10 16:55:54 UTC #645

This is what i'm waiting to see...will Brand be given the chance to run the team...I'm thinking any of these high level coaches will not come here if they interview and find there is a mess above them.

zambonir 2020-09-14 01:27:35 UTC #646

I guess we're just gonna wait for the playoffs to end in case more coaches come available (though I suppose if the Nuggets pull off this upset that could also move up the Lue timeline).

He will be considered among a group of candidates for the Philadelphia 76ers' coaching opening, sources told ESPN.

phillychuck 2020-09-14 02:15:17 UTC #647

Going from the smallest team in the league to what could be the tallest (depending on lineup).

zambonir 2020-09-14 02:21:43 UTC #648

I'm all for a slow process. Pick their brains. You may not want give the coach say in the roster, but you still want to know what he thinks of it, and what he might change if he could.

Certainly his traditional style would not suit Joel (or Horford) on paper.

VoteForKalas 2020-09-15 15:59:26 UTC #649

If the 76ers hire D'Antoni, I'm out....

bigegypt0417 2020-09-15 17:56:27 UTC #650

What about D'antoni do you dislike?

zambonir 2020-09-16 03:20:57 UTC #651

I'm not as melodramatic as VFK, but if true, it really surprises me, and IMO, seems like a real more-of-the-same decision from this ownership and front office, i.e., hiring the guy they already know. Not to mention he was Colangelo's guy (and could have easily replaced Brown had they gone that way at the time). And Brand actually played for the Sixers when D'Antoni was here

But a league source believes the job could be D’Antoni’s to lose. The source believes the 69-year-old would have to bomb his interview with the Sixers owners not to be offered the job, and said D’Antoni is the candidate they want. A team source denied that, saying the ownership won’t know who it wants until candidates are interviewed.

He just doesn't seem like a good strategic fit. And while he obviously has had success in his career, he's also had some big flops. He did more in Houston than the Sixers have, but Philly fans would still want him gone for what he did there, and long before this year too.

zambonir 2020-09-16 03:24:03 UTC #652

Hayes' take (he thinks they are all bad fits and they should do whatever they can to get Juwan Howard).

I spent the past few days polling a handful of currently powerless NBA lifers about the coaching vacancy. The consensus: It’s a bad job, with a structureless organization. You would work in a brutally demanding town that, after seven years of Processing, itches for validation, but, after seven years of mismanagement, is years (and several catastrophic contracts) away from attainting real relevance.

bigegypt0417 2020-09-16 15:37:04 UTC #653

I really have trouble with the whole idea "the sky is falling" with the sixers and this roster. With a simple opening up of conversations around either Embiid or Simmons, you can easily clear up salary issues...it's as if people forget that in the NBA, moving contracts is fairly easy.

I don't always dismiss "sources" but it seems to me it's easy to find "sources" to support the article you want to write.

xogfog 2020-09-16 15:52:35 UTC #654

I'm not sure I agree with you about NBA salaries being easy to move. You can't just cut guys. You also have to trade for near equal value, so you have to take back someone else's problem. Even if you take back expiring contracts, you still have to process them before you can spend that money. Even if they could shed salary, there are no premier free agents available this offseason, so you have to find a trade partner, and even if they had a scenario like a trade of Horford for Chris Paul, you would have to move more salary to fit Paul's contract on the Sixers.

VoteForKalas 2020-09-16 16:04:36 UTC #655

Zambonir summed it up pretty well, but it is not all about D'Antoni.

This is about the 76ers ownership & management showing if they have learned anything from the Brown era and are ready to get serious about building a true winner or not.

Hiring D'Antoni tells me they are not.

The 76ers need a Pat Riley or Phil Jackson-type. A well respected, experienced and proven winning coach who will demand excellence and guide Simmons & Embiid to grow and challenge themselves as men, players and leaders.

That coach will teach Simmons & Embiid how to make this their team and set the tone on and especially off the court.

Embiid will no longer be allowed to be out of shape or not take care of himself; he will commit to a program where he gets all the support/motivation he needs to harness his body and stay healthy.

Simmons will no longer be allowed to not develop his game i.e shooting in particular. Not just 3 pointers, but he should be a danger offensively all over the court. His penetration game is already excellent. Pair that with consistent range from outside and he will be extremely hard to stop.
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Simmons & Enbiid are our cornerstones. They need to be on track before anything else can work. The rest of the roster needs to be constructed around their strengths and to strengthen their weaknesses. For example, Embiid is elite on the block, but he needs to have very good outlet shooters to make defenses pay for doubling.

We have our versions of Jordan and Pippen (I'm not comparing them), but we need them to become what Jordan and Pippen were: leaders of men who refused to accept losing and did anything and everything they could to win.

And we need the coach & roster around them to help them become those players.

It is a tall task, but if we want a ring out of this era that is what it will take if the 76ers are serious.

bigegypt0417 2020-09-16 16:08:41 UTC #656

What you can do is trade assets in exchange for relief and expiring contracts. If you are trading a big chip, you can also move some salary. The overarching point to me is that horford's contract is bloated but do we really believe he can't play a role? The sixers will need to bring in a shooter and possibly a legit PG but this team is still very talented.

The biggest issue this off season is what to do with your two stars and can they co-exist. That will probably depend on the next coach.

bigegypt0417 2020-09-16 16:16:06 UTC #657

Here's mt problem with all of that...D'antoni is a winning coach and he is very much respected. Lue is that same...Donovan is the same.

Simmons game has continued to develop and was derailed with injuries this year. He is a star and is already extremely difficult to defend...he's also a defensive standout as should be proven by finishing 4th in the DPOY voting. This is also another point...you got to see how much better the team is when he's on the court in the series against the Celtics.

Joel Embiid to me is a major issue with this team for more than one reason...he doesn't take his conditioning seriously and only shows intensity in small bursts.

Kevin durant was also 100% correct in the fact that you can't keep churning this roster.

VoteForKalas 2020-09-16 18:59:27 UTC #658

You need a strong and experienced mentor coach; Embiid and Simmons need to be challenged to become the team leaders on and off the court so we can win a ring, not just win games or a playoff round.

You need someone who has successfully completed that process with a young star player or star players, who helped them develop and grow into leading the team to put winning above all else and not be satisfied with second best. Generating and maintaining that hunger is a unique skill for the coach, but it has been done many times.

I do not see D'Antoni or Lue or Donovan as coaches that fit that bill or this moment in 76ers history. If they get this coach choice wrong, this era is likely wasted.

I know we've debated this quite a few times, but the bottom line is Simmons is not where he needs to be for this team win consistently or win a ring. He is a good player, but not great. He has amazing talent, but has not fully harnessed all of it. He is elite in several aspects of the game, but very limited in others. Great players maximize their strengths, but work constantly on improving their weaknesses. The current team can win games. They can win a playoff round.

However, they will and have been eliminated by teams who have the traits I've highlighted. Their star players want to be great and do everything they can to be great. Does that at times take them out of their comfort zone? Absolutely. Does it at times challenge them to face their own issues and grow as a person? Definitely. Do they let any of it stop them from winning? No. They work relentlessly on every facet of their craft and become a complete player.

That level of commitment is where Ben and Joel both need to get for this team to win a ring and pay off on the entire Process era we've all lived through as fans.

I agree, we need the same level of commitment from Embiid as from Simmons. He is also a good player, but not yet great. We need a coach who can unlock, harness and sustain that level of commitment from both stars.

zambonir 2020-09-16 19:05:47 UTC #659

I wouldn't call it "easy." But you and xogfog are talking about two different things. If you're ready to trade either Joel or Ben that's a very different set of options than if you are just trying to get a team to take Horford or Harris. Clearly the success of other teams shows there are ways to win without two (let alone three) stars.

The sky isn't falling, but there's nothing about the franchise that is elite, starting with the owners and GM, so we can only hope they get lucky making future decisions. The whole point of the Process, and the goal for any team, is to have a chance to win championships. That means being one of the four best teams in the league with some consistency. The Sixers have now slipped to the point where they'd settle for being one of the eight best, and might be a lot worse than that (that's what the standings and this year's playoff result says, though I wouldn't read too much into it obviously).

With the two players we have it's not an unsolvable problem, but it's still a big one. A little while back I said the Sixers will never win a title while both Ben and Joel are here and I also said I was being deliberately Negadelphian. But now that seems pretty likely, whether because they can't improve the roster enough around them, they trade one of them, or because of injuries. I see a team that will be like Houston or Portland or Boston (until now?) for the next five years, - always in the playoffs, maybe falling just short of the finals once if they are lucky, but not the class of the conference of the league.

The other implication with D'Antoni, and Lue, is that they are candidates because the players would approve of them. Joel played for D'Antonio, Lue has the LeBron seal of approval with Simmons. In the NBA star players run things, but our stars haven't ever earned that right.

The problem is there aren't any Pat Rileys or Phil Jacksons or Gregg Popovichs out there. You have to find the next Spoelstra or Nurse or Steve Kerr. And you can't discount Lue, supposedly he can be tough, and he has worked for both Phil Jackson and Danny Ainge.

bigegypt0417 2020-09-16 19:14:38 UTC #660

Ben Simmons named to the Third team All NBA as one of the best 15 players in the league...

Embiid missed the list but did have 3 votes for the first team.

bigegypt0417 2020-09-16 19:16:19 UTC #661

VoteForKalas:

bigegypt0417:

Here's mt problem with all of that...D'antoni is a winning coach and he is very much respected. Lue is that same...Donovan is the same.
You need a strong and experienced mentor coach; Embiid and Simmons need to be challenged to become the team leaders on and off the court so we can win a ring, not just win games or a playoff round.

You need someone who has successfully completed that process with a young star player or star players, who helped them develop and grow into leading the team to put winning above all else and not be satisfied with second best. Generating and maintaining that hunger is a unique skill for the coach, but it has been done many times.

I do not see D'Antoni or Lue or Donovan as coaches that fit that bill or this moment in 76ers history. If they get this coach choice wrong, this era is likely wasted.

So who are you thinking?

xogfog 2020-09-16 19:52:43 UTC #662

Imagine where Simmons would be if he shot the ball.