Interminable Sixers Coaching Search At An End: It's the Spurs Guy

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At the draft a month and a half ago, erroneous reports (which we played our part in further circulating) surfaced that the Sixers had hired former Spurs assistant and Australian national team head coach Brett Brown to succeed Doug Collins as the Ballers' new fearless leader. A month-and-a-half after that story was debunked, and after 2/3 of the assistant coaches in North America were interviewed for the position, Sam Hinkie has finally made his selection...and it's former Spurs assistant and Australian national team head coach Brett Brown. Good looking out, Hink.

Update: Marc Stein is now reporting that colleagues are trying to talk him out of accepting the job. Shut up, coaching dudes.

What do we know about Brett Brown? Not much, but Rich Hoffman of Liberty Ballers apparently knows some things, and the following takeaways from his recent profile on BreBro seem noteworthy:

1. He has a stellar reputation for player development, having served as director of player development for San Antone from 2002-2006--which, for what it's worth, was the period when two late draft picks in Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker first became perennial All-Star candidates and likely future Hall-of-Famers. Sixers are gonna need a healthy dose of young-dude whispering over the next half-decade, so that's good to know.

2. He's a pretty worldly dude, having found his way to the Australian national team after taking a post-basketball backpacking trip across the land down under. Having a good working knowledge of international hostels doesn't necessarily make you a basketball genius, natch, but hey, the two best coaches of the last quarter century (Phil Jackson and Brown's old boss Gregg Popovich) were both pretty cultured dudes, so maybe there's something to that.

3. He has a really thick Boston accent. Don't quite know what to think of that, to be honest, but it should make for some entertaining post-gamers, at least.

Hoffman also points out that if Brown takes after Pop, he'll also be smart enough to stay out of the way of the team's tanking effort--as the Spurs did in '97 in order to land Tim Duncan--which is also probably a good thing.

In the end, my analysis of this coaching move is the same as it was six weeks ago: Brown has the word "Spurs" closely associated with his name, so good hire by default. You can't exactly translate stats across coaching gigs, so we'll just have to wait and see what the Brett Brown era brings us, but I'm more optimistic than not. Go smart Sixers.

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