In the wake of a disappointing post-season finish, the Philadelphia 76ers have fired head coach Brett Brown, the team announced Monday.
Brown took over as head coach of the 76ers in 2013 and went on to coach the team for seven seasons, guiding them to the playoffs in each of the last three.
“In 2013, I was employed to lead one of the most dramatic rebuilds in professional sports history,” Brown wrote in a statement. “In the past seven years, our players and coaches have evolved and grown, and I have deep appreciation for the 102 players I have coached.”
Brown oversaw the growth of a Philadelphia team that went from perennially in the Draft Lottery to being one with championship aspirations.
However, after repeated failures to advance beyond the second round of the playoffs, and with significant player salary tied up in the contracts of Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris and Al Horford, ownership determined a coaching change was needed.
Among the early candidates to fill Brown’s role, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic, are Clippers assistant Ty Lue, Villanova coach Jay Wright and 76ers assistant Ime Udoka.
“We are really disappointed and know we let our fans down,” 76ers managing partner Josh Harris reportedly said, in a statement obtained by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. “It’s unacceptable and it’s important that we all hold ourselves accountable.
“We’re going to be doing a real assessment of how we got here and expect that more changes will need to be made in order to get this organization back on track. This will be a crucial off-season for us and we need to get this right.”
Those changes, according to Wojnarowski, are expected to extend beyond Brown’s firing and eventual replacement.
Philadelphia’s plan, Wojnarowski reported, is for team president Elton Brand to continue overseeing basketball operations, but the front office to undergo significant evaluation in an effort to explore changes into its structure.
