Spike Eskin: No News And Bad News In Sixers-Land
By Spike Eskin
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – "Things, things are getting worse. Things are getting oh so bad. Spoon feed me the good news, forget about the rest." - Too Much Joy
It's not an easy time to be a Sixers fan, for those few who are still around. It's amazing, in a city that takes such pride in being "four for four," and showing passion in good times and bad, finding someone who wants to talk about Sixers basketball is a difficult task at the moment.
Since the the miserable season quietly ended with a self-serving press conference with Doug Collins, and a mouthful of "we'll see" from Josh Harris, there hasn't been much to be excited about. The team has said ... nothing. Aside from Adam Aron asking Twitter what they think of the Wells Fargo Center lighting, there hasn't been a peep out of the front office or ownership.
And the things that have leaked out, have been, well, terrible. Mostly terrible. Let's examine.
Larry Brown Wants To Come Back
NOOOOOOOOO! PLEEEEEEEEEEEASE NOOOOOOOOOO!
The former Sixers coach told the Daily News' Bob Cooney how much he loves Philadelphia and the Sixers. Brown told Cooney that although he likes his current job as head coach of Southern Methodist University, he'd love to be involved with the Sixers in some capacity.
With all due respect to Larry Brown, who I'm sure is a wonderful man and a very good basketball coach, replacing one older coach who is obsessed with "doing things the right way" and as adverse to playing young guys with another of the same, sounds like an absolute nightmare to me.
Brown has never been one to get comfortable to be in one place for too long, and perhaps he's got the itch. Please, please, please allow someone else to scratch it for him.
Jrue Holiday And Evan Turner Want Michael Curry To Be Head Coach
Jrue Holiday and Evan Turner expressed a desire to have assistant coach Michael Curry as their head coach.
Curry, who was the architect of the Sixers defense, might very well be a good head coach, and deserve another crack at it. Just not here.
If we could erase every memory of last season, that would be the best plan. I also don't want a coach who feels in any way beholden to Doug Collins.
I'm sure Jrue Holiday would feel comfortable with someone he's already comfortable with. He can get comfortable with someone else.
As for Evan Turner, I'm not particularly concerned with who he wants to be the Sixers coach.
The Reasons The Sixers Are An Attractive Coach Destination
Admirably, John Gonzalez attempted to outline five reasons that the Sixers should be an attractive destination for a new coach. Unfortunately, when looking at the reasons, you get a little despressed.
#5 for John is Evan Turner. When the fifth best reason is a shooting guard who can't shoot and thinks he's a point guard, you might be in trouble.
#3 for John is expiring contracts. Think about this for a moment. "You should coach here because the bad players we have will probably leave!" Eek.
#2 for John is wealthy owners. This puts the Sixers in a club with almost every team in the NBA.
This is not an indictment on John, who tried to do the impossible. This is an indictment on the reasons.
Andrew Bynum Dancing
Should players be allowed to have fun during the off-season? Absolutely.
Is this sort of a slap in the face of the organization who paid him, the teammates who waited for him, and the fans who showed up at the games? Absolutely.
Bro, buy an XBox and hang out at home for a bit. Or at least refrain from anything that involves the knees that kept you from playing all year.
The Coach Search
The names that have surfaced, Malone, Shaw, Budenholzer and Hornacek, are all fine.
The problem seems to be that the guy searching for the coach seems likely to no longer be general manager of the team next year. I'm just guessing here, but I'm thinking Josh Harris' anti-endorsement of Tony DiLeo a few weeks ago means there will be a change there.
DiLeo is a good basketball guy and I bet remains with the organization even if he's not GM, but the whole thing just looks bad.
Think about it, how are Josh Harris et al going to find a coach and a GM? The only guys who knew anything about basketball, outside of DiLeo, are gone. Collins is probably only a text message away, but I'd rather his opinion be kept out of it. Rod Thorn is an adviser, but Collins forced ownership to push Thorn out of the way before last season, is he really a guy who will be terribly invested in all of this?
Perhaps there's a light at the end of this tunnel. But to end this thing with a song lyric, the same way I started it...
"Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel, is just a freight train coming your way." - Metallica
