It is August, the schedule has been released and the Philadelphia 76ers still do not have a coach.
New general manager Sam Hinkie has taken his time in rebuilding the Sixers from the ground up. He traded all-star point guard Jrue Holiday and drafted Nerlens Noel and his still-injured torn ACL. That would be the baseline. The coach leading this rebuild project?
Philadelphia appears finally to have come to that decision, reportedly offering the job to San Antonio assistant Brett Brown. Brown has been an assistant with San Antonio for the past seven years and he was the national team coach for Australia during the 2008 Olympics.
The hang up according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports are the details for the contract — the length and salary for the Sixers new coach.
Philadelphia will be a lot of work for Brown should he take the position. The 76ers are doing an almost complete rebuild and will rely heavily on young and unproven players next season. Their top returning scorer is Thaddeus Young, who averaged 14.8 points per game. The 76ers were not a great offensive team to begin with and relying on rookies Michael Carter-Williams and Nerlens Noel (who probably will not be available until December), could mean a lot of losses.
Brown, or whoever ends up with the Sixers job at long last, will get a pretty long leash as far as wins and losses go. Like many successful rebuilds, this season will be about establishing a culture for future teams.
The first step, I guess, is hiring the coach and getting him to his players to start laying down those bricks. And this team will be shooting a lot of them.
