Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Hayes: Sixers' Brown belongs in Coach of Year discussion

IT SOUNDS preposterous: Brett Brown should be NBA Coach of the Year. Yes, yes. We know. His Sixers are 22-36 and they would do well to reach 29 wins this season. They sit six games out of the last Eastern Conference playoff spot with 24 games to play. They have the fifth-worst record in the league; it would be hard to argue that they aren't the fifth-worst team.

IT SOUNDS preposterous: Brett Brown should be NBA Coach of the Year.

Yes, yes. We know.

His Sixers are 22-36 and they would do well to reach 29 wins this season. They sit six games out of the last Eastern Conference playoff spot with 24 games to play. They have the fifth-worst record in the league; it would be hard to argue that they aren't the fifth-worst team.

However, when graded on the Hinkie Curve, each of those results reflects monumental success. But the 130-member media panel surely will lack the courage (and lunacy) to make such a bold determination. You cannot blame the voters.

So, maybe not coach of the year. Not this year. Certainly, though, Brown has earned a few third-place votes, which means he should be a real candidate entering next season assuming the Sixers continue their progress.

Fairly or not, the criteria for these sorts of awards seldom fully incorporate the minutia required to justify Brown's candidacy. Considering his obstacles and his assets, Brown might never do a better job than the job he has done so far this season. Examine what a coach is tasked to do.

A coach should win as many games as possible. Brown won 10 games last season. He has worked without two projected starters this season, yet he more than doubled his win total. He has overachieved.

A coach's team and players should improve as the season progresses. The Sixers are a viable NBA team thanks largely to the improvement of T.J. McConnell, Dario Saric, Robert Covington, Nik Stauskas, Richaun Holmes and, of course, Joel Embiid.

More than anything else, a coach should adapt as scenarios change. Nothing changes scenarios like injuries and transactions.

Brown lost No. 1 overall pick Ben Simmons for the season to a broken foot. Rookie center Embiid has played 31 of 58 games due to injury concerns. A bone bruise in his left knee has cost him 11 straight games, 14 of the last 15, and will cost him at least two more. Embiid's foot issues from the past two seasons restricted his play all season. Free-agent point guard Jerryd Bayless had a wrist injury that cost him all but three games. Backup center Nerlens Noel missed the first 23 games of the season because he chose to have knee surgery.

When Saric struggled early, the Sixers added versatile Turkish veteran Ersan Ilyasova, then traded him Wednesday. Seamlessly, Brown integrated him; just as seamlessly he has adapted to Ilyasova's departure.

In Brown's four seasons, the biggest obstacle to relevance has been the lack of a reliable, two-way point guard. Sergio Rodriguez, a 30-year-old Spanish star, was Plan B if something happened to Bayless, but Rodriguez shoots poorly and defends worse. So, with no alternative, Brown simply molded McConnell, who clung to the roster as an undrafted rookie afterthought a year ago. The team is 15-12 since Brown made McConnell a starter Dec. 30.

Granted, Brown is the losingest coach to ever coach more than one complete NBA season, but he was instructed to lose. This season, undercut by injuries to Simmons, Bayless and Noel and forced to lean on unseasoned rookies Embiid and Saric, Brown's future seemed tenuous when the Sixers began 4-18.

They are 18-18 since Dec. 8. They have beaten four teams that sit in playoff positions. Their point differential of minus-5.3 is 4.9 points better than last season.

No, Brown won't win the award. He probably shouldn't, really, since there is a bumper crop of candidates this year. Mike D'Antoni unleashed the point-guard inside Rockets star James Harden. Brad Stevens, who should have won it with the Celtics last season, deserves a much longer look a year later. Quin Snyder makes the Jazz a synergistic pleasure. Dwayne Casey and the Raptors scare everyone. Gregg Popovich is a three-time winner whose Spurs are the No. 2 team in the league the season after they lost the best player in franchise history, Tim Duncan.

It's no coincidence, of course, that Brown worked for Pop for 12 years before Sam Hinkie begged him to pilot "The Process," the most complete deconstruction in NBA history. Apologies to Embiid, who hijacked the phrase, but if anyone should be nicknamed "The Process" it should be Brown, who has nurtured the reconstruction every excruciating day. Evidence of Brown's abilities abound.

Saric, a Euro pro the past four years who wore himself out before the season began, has eclipsed Embiid as the most deserving rookie of the year candidate. In the last seven games, with Embiid sidelined, Saric has averaged 20.3 points and 9.0 rebounds and hit 50.9 percent of his shots. The Sixers are 4-3. He has been their best player.

McConnell has blossomed into an efficient floor general and a passable defender who understands his limitations. Faint praise, perhaps; but consider that McConnell was simply overmatched in his first 112 NBA games. Covington joined the Sixers in 2014 as a D-League gunner but now is an excellent defender and rebounder.

Noel entered the league without a jump shot but his shooting percentage from outside of 5 feet more than doubled this season and his career free-throw shooting rose by 8.4 percent, to 68.3. Brown worked on Noel's shooting every day until he was traded to Dallas last week.

Noel has not been missed because Holmes stepped into Noel's role the past two games. Holmes suffered most from the logjam at center but, freed on Friday, he scored 12 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and blocked five shots against the Wizards. Nerlens who?

And, of course, there is Embiid, Brown's most important and most challenging player. Every day Brown has to reconcile Embiid's amazing athleticism and his 7-2, 250-pound frame with his manic desire to compete and his disheartening fragility: How much to practice him? How to use those precious practice minutes: in the post, on his undeveloped footwork, or on the perimeter, where his emerging shooting touch can destroy defenses? How much to play him, and when? And, the most delicate task: How to tell Embiid when he can't play?

No coach of the year has had both a losing record and missed the playoffs . . . but maybe Brown winning it would not be as unthinkable as you'd think.

In 1966-67, rookie coach Red Kerr went 33-48 with the Chicago Bulls in their first season of expansion. That's a .407 win percentage, good enough for a playoff spot in the 10-team league. If the Sixers hit 30 wins, that would be a .366 percentage.

In 1999-2000, Doc Rivers won with Orlando but the Magic missed the playoffs at 41-41.

Kerr had Guy Rodgers, Jerry Sloan and Bob Boozer, who would see four All-Star Games as Bulls. Brown's most likely All-Stars are rookies. Rivers improved the Magic by eight games. Brown already has improved the Sixers by 12.

To review:

Embiid has averaged less than 25 minutes and played just 31 games. Simmons and Bayless both were slated to start. Neither Covington nor McConnell was drafted. Rodriguez had to play the last six years in Europe. Holmes, a second-round pick in 2015, was assigned to the D-League three times in January. Saric looks like he's been in the NBA for a decade. This ragtag team of overachievers can beat almost anyone.

That's just good coaching.

hayesm@phillynews.com

@inkstainedretch Blog: ph.ly/DNL