The Press Conference: Josh Harris and Brett Brown

There’s gonna be a lot to digest here, so let me just type out key notes as I go, and we’ll circle back and double over the more important things that come out.

It’s Josh Harris and Brett Brown at the podium, and Harris begins with an opening statement:

• difficult day for me personally, love the team and our exciting future, this is a disappointing situation for everyone, want to thank everybody for the patience while we conducted a fair and thorough investigation
• investigation determined that Colangelo failed to safeguard club information and he offered his resignation understand how that affected us and the ability to do his job
• Colangelo has “positioned us well for future success”
• Brett Brown will oversee basketball operations on an interim basis, we have tremendous confidence in him and our staff, looking forward to strengthening the team through the draft and into the offseason
• will interview internal and external candidates for the GM search, will “take our time” and try to position the franchise for longterm success, “it’s not about making the choice quickly, it’s about making the right choice.”

Questions now:

• Harris on Jerry Colangelo’s 2015 arrival and his influence over the last week during this process: “Jerry was not involved with the process (investigation) in any way. I’m aware of the press report and it’s not true.”
• Harris on BC’s statement: “we feel like this was an incredibly fair investigation”
• Brown on criticism of star players in the burner account tweets, and whether he’s talked to players: “I’ve spoken to all of our players. There was a level of uncertainty” when it first came out. We understand Joel’s response, it was a confusing and unfortunate situation. “We feel strongly that the communication with our players has been achieved.”
• Harris on LeBron and others joking about the saga: unfortunate, but we have a bright future, it doesn’t change where we are as a franchise, we’re focused on draft, free agency, improving our team. we have a lot of continuity in the front office, would have obviously preferred it didn’t happen
• Brown: we understand that “this too shall pass,” body of work will put us in fantastic shape
• Harris on decision to give Brown interim powers: “decision was an obvious one,” we’ll look at internal and external candidates
• Brown: “Bryan did a great job of putting key people in key positions, front office has firepower with Rucker, Medina, Eversley, Elton Brand, we have what we need to move this forward and not miss a beat. “I have no desire to do day to day GM stuff, nor do I believe it’s effective to move an NBA program forward.” I can show faith and support over the next month, month and a half. “My role is to provide a level of leadership with people I trust and respect and do the
• On Sam Hinkie coming back: Harris – “we have a lot of respect for Sam and appreciate how he positioned our franchise.” will do our best to find the absolute best GM going forward, we need to start thinking about that now (non-committal on this response)
• on establishing front office continuity, Harris: “we’ve grown a lot and been through a lot in this organization, but there’s continuity in the coaching staff and our job is to create, to achieve longevity,” there’s been turnover at GM position but we’re looking for Mr. and Mrs. right where we can hit the home run in the long term
• on who has final say at the draft – Harris: ??? (a meandering non-answer that I need to go back and listen to)
• how long did they know: Harris didnt know about the burner accounts until day story broke
• they feel like they’re in good position to attract free agents because Embiid, Simmons, Fultz, and cap space
• Harris says he saw the sales job that Brown did with JJ Redick – “he got him on the court at 1 a.m., Embiid was there, they were passing the ball around,” my hope is that Brett will be out there being a great salesman for our franchise
• On Jerry Colangelo sticking around – not today’s issue, will be talking about that, we enjoyed having him

Video, sorry for the quality, they didn’t have tables set up so I have to put my phone on the floor and lean it against a water bottle:

Sixers press conference https://t.co/JuB8Jo5jfi

— Kevin Kinkead (@Kevin_Kinkead) June 7, 2018