Nick Piccone
Brett Brown may be the most underrated person in Philadelphia sports today. From what he’s been through as the head coach of a team that was tanking three years in a row to a team that’s now seeing light at the end of the tunnel, Brown has been the rock behind possibly the worst era of Sixers basketball ever. Most coaches by now may have moved onto bigger and better things, but Brown’s been here through thick and thin.
During a time where Sixers fans are a bit wary of what Bryan Colangelo has said and they feel the team has been misleading them in regards to the respective injuries to Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid, Brown has been the only one to quell the collective fans’ worries. The Sixers’ coach was on the WIP Morning Show today and was straightforward in discussing Embiid’s injury. [CBS Philly]
“And I think the thing that has caught probably the public off guard, is the people in the know felt it was a preexisting injury. Everybody should hear this, our intention is we’re gonna play him. He’s gonna do what he’s doing, he’s gonna come back after the all-star break and it’s our intention to get him back on the court. Nobody would do that if it was something that we felt was significant. The injury was a bone bruise and I feel like when people hear meniscus, people’s eyes and ears go up and I understand. But really the end game for us, is we hope to get him back on the court after the all-star break.”
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“I get it and I take tremendous pride on making sure that personally and the club, that you handle yourself with some honesty and credibility,” Brown said. “It’s when I hear that being thrown out for me, that I start listening to doctors that feel like this is a preexisting injury. And then you hear other doctors saying, ‘And by the way we’re gonna bring him back out on the court and get him back out playing.’ The minimal way that they’ve explained, you just sort of dust it off and you move on. The problem is the bone bruise.
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“I hear you Angelo and it’s something that perhaps should have been said and delivered just like I just did, where it was something where nobody was really raising their eyebrows about. The injury is the bone bruise and the preexisting injury we can deal with later.”
Man, if only someone in the Sixers organization can not sound like they’re hiding something when speaking. Brown continued, saying the long-term health of Embiid isn’t a worry right now.
“I’m not worried,” Brown said of Embiid long-term. “I understand, I mean how can you not listen to those facts that you just said and not sort of responsibly ask the question that you just asked. I feel when we can actually get him in shape — because he really hasn’t been in shape, he hasn’t had the opportunity to get into the shape that I’m talking about for a long time. And I think he plays with such a reckless abandon. The things that we all love about him, at times put him in very compromising positions.
“I’m trusting Joel, I’m trusting our strength and conditioning people, etcetera, that we’re gonna build a base. A strong base, a calculated base, that could perhaps put him in less compromising situations moving forward.”
You can listen to the entire interview below.