Brett Brown will be back on an NBA bench next season.
Per Sportando's Emiliano Carchia, the former Sixers coach will be reuniting with Gregg Popovich in San Antonio, filling in the assistant role left by Becky Hammon after she took the head coaching job for the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces in December.
Brown, with player development as his specialty, was hired by Sam Hinkie in the summer of 2013 as the head coach to guide the Sixers through The Process — "Can you imagine if we get this right?" he said of the opportunity at the time — and after patience through several brutal seasons, Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons had emerged as rising stars, the Sixers had assembled their most complete roster in decades, and Brown finally guided the team to its first playoff series win in six years in 2018.
The club never took the next step though — they still haven't — and after failing to advance past the second round the next season, having to fill in as GM for a bit because of the chaotic Bryan Colangelo saga, and getting swept right out of the first by Boston in the 2020 playoff bubble, Brown was fired for Doc Rivers.
Brown, 61, was an assistant coach in San Antonio for years before taking the Sixers job, and ironically he'll be returning to a Spurs team in rebuild mode.
The Sixers, with Embiid as one of the NBA's best players and Simmons now in Brooklyn doing everything but playing basketball, are still trying to figure out how to break through.
Anyway, here's my favorite Brett Brown moment:
And the priceless follow-up:
Simpler times...ugh...
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