You can go ahead and add former 76ers head coach and current coach of the Southern Methodist University men's basketball team, Larry Brown, to the list of those pretty peeved by Philadelphia GM Sam Hinkie and his plan to revive the city's ailing basketball program.
"I hate what's going on in Philly," the Hall of Fame coach said Wednesday, according to John N. Mitchell of the Philadelphia Inquirer, while speaking at a media event for the American Athletic Conference. "They don't have a basketball person in the organization. It makes me sick to my stomach."
Wow. Tell us how you really feel, Lar.
The 76ers are running headlong into another season where their - unstated yet entirely obvious - goal is to lose as many games as possible en route to garnering the best pick possible in next year's NBA draft - a strategy known as "tanking."
They finished last season with the second-worst record in the league (19-63) and ended up drafting center Joel Embiid third overall.
"Can you imagine telling Allen Iverson that this is a rebuilding season so we're going to be bad on purpose?" Brown continued. "I love [Nerlens] Noel, I love Joel [Embiid]. But you can't put that stuff into them. Again, it boggles my mind. I understand you have to get assets to get better. You get assets by developing young players, draft picks, and moving contracts. But how much teaching is going on?"
Brown, who coached the organization from 1997 to 2003 during the heady days of Allen Iverson's prime, spoke highly of new coach Brett Brown, but was adamant that he could not coach a team actively seeking to lose.
"No, I wouldn't do it. We wouldn't lose. Brett can coach, he's one of Pop's guys," the elder Brown said, referring to San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich. "But what they are doing to that city to me is mind-boggling. That's the greatest basketball city in the world with its fans and you want them to sit back and watch you lose."
Recent criticism for Hinkie has been abundant and seemingly ubiquitous - Brown is just another in a growing list of NBA names and personalities to blast the 76ers plan. In fact, it's a plan that has received so much attention and criticism; it almost led to a change in the entire draft lottery format.
Brown, who has coached nine NBA franchises and led eight of them to the playoffs, is no fan of losing - intentional or otherwise - or Hinkie's and other's new reliance on advanced basketball analytics.
"These analytics, they don't mean squat to me," Brown said. "Throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. To say that these analytics guys have the answer is crazy. It doesn't apply to basketball. Everybody uses the data you get, but that's what coaching is."
Brown may not like it, but he, and others, will take a wait-and-see approach to Hinkie's grand scheme of failure and rebirth.
"Maybe it will work, I don't know. But it's a shame what those fans are going through waiting to see if it will."
