Let’s step aside from the Eagles for a moment to present a 76ers nugget.

Still no head coach for the team, as GM Elton Brand runs a front office that still includes Bryan Colangelo disciples Alex Cohen and Ned Rucker.

At The Athletic, Shams Charania has a small update on the situation via his “Inside Pass” column:

“76ers general manager Elton Brand has met with several top candidates for the franchise’s head coach opening and the team expects to bring a shortlist of candidates to the Philadelphia area within 10 days for the next round of interviews, sources said. Former Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni, ex-Thunder coach Billy Donovan and Clippers assistant Ty Lue are expected to be part of the next round of interviews and are strongly vying for and interested in the position, according to sources.

Philadelphia remains intent on building and adding talent under Brand to further strengthen the front office. Brand is well-respected by his peers across the NBA, agents and basketball industry executives. In addition to leading the head coaching search, Brand is having conversations with multiple NBA front-office personnel to bolster his staff. For the 76ers, Brand continues to be the leader of basketball operations.”

Couple of thoughts, in no real order:

  1. Mike D’Antoni doesn’t make a lot of sense. The Sixers don’t have the shooters to run his type of schemes, which, ironically, Brett Brown mixed into his Spurs concepts to build his own offense in Philadelphia. It was Spurs motion with D’Antoni ideas sprinkled in.
  2. Billy Donovan had an excellent first year in the NBA, then after Kevin Durant’s departure the Thunder went four straight years with first-round exits. Going from Brown to Donovan feels like a lateral move at best.
  3. Tyronn Lue, again, just feel like he’s equipped to pull more out of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons and deal with off-court attitudes and egos. I think he’d be a better choice than Donovan.
  4. The line about “building and adding talent under Brand” isn’t very assuring. The Sixers probably should have moved on from the Colangelo leftovers by now and tried to clean that slate. Brand openly admitted that the “collaboration” didn’t work, yet only one member of the collaboration has been axed. The others remain.

 

They could certainly “bolster” the staff and marginalize contributions from Rucker and Cohen at the same time, but this is a fan base craving wholesale changes and not intermediate-level tweaks, which is the path we appear to be on.