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Speaker 1: thirty nine and twenty six and at sixth place in
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference. What exactly were the seventy Sixers at
Speaker 1: the time the global pandemic hit? It was the issue
Speaker 1: surrounded the team, which had only played nineteen of sixty
Speaker 1: five games, with its opening nights starting five. As it
Speaker 1: sits in my coaching world, this thing is so for
Speaker 1: me incomplete. With a fade of the NBA season still
Speaker 1: in the balance, the question now shifts after a lengthy hiatus,
Speaker 1: what could Brett Brown Sixers ultimately be in the event
Speaker 1: play resumes. We do not want to use this at
Speaker 1: all as an excuse. The mission has been and will be.
Speaker 1: We need to hunt for a championship. We catch up
Speaker 1: with the Sixers head coach on this episode of the broadcast.
Speaker 1: Hey up their seventy Sixers pod people. I'm Brian Seltzer.
Speaker 1: I hope you're doing great or as well as can be.
Speaker 1: Over the past seven years, Philadelphia has gotten to know
Speaker 1: Brett Brown pretty well. He's been through downs, he's been
Speaker 1: through ups, He's dealt with injuries to all stars, and
Speaker 1: now this a stoppage of play in the midst of
Speaker 1: a season that he in the seventy six ers had
Speaker 1: very high hopes for. Not only is Brown persistent and resilient,
Speaker 1: he's a worldly guy too. And a conversation recorded May fifteenth,
Speaker 1: the fifty nine year old head coach and I talked
Speaker 1: about some of those qualities, what he and his family
Speaker 1: have been up to bunker down in the suburbs, and
Speaker 1: what the days and months ahead could look like. From
Speaker 1: a personal stampoint, I knew that when the pandemic began,
Speaker 1: none of us knew how long, you know, we were
Speaker 1: going to be asked to kind of socially distanced with everybody.
Speaker 1: That I wanted to try to find a rhythm to
Speaker 1: my day, you know, I really wanted to find personally
Speaker 1: a routine. And the routine goes something like this. I
Speaker 1: get up very very early and go immediately for like long,
Speaker 1: you know, several hour power walks. I have the fittest
Speaker 1: dog in Philadelphia, and my wife accompanies me on our
Speaker 1: walks more than she doesn't. I love spending time with her.
Speaker 1: We just try to get up and get going, come
Speaker 1: back to the house, usually at that stage, you know,
Speaker 1: the kids are waking up. I am the cook of
Speaker 1: the house, whether it's breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Some of
Speaker 1: it is because I really enjoy it. Another part is
Speaker 1: I feel like I don't have to clean once I
Speaker 1: do cook, and so there's a little bit of a
Speaker 1: selfish trade off. And then you're get it going into hoops,
Speaker 1: you know, and the day, the day jumps like you're
Speaker 1: on zoom calls. A lot we can get into, like
Speaker 1: what the routine and rhythm has been with my team
Speaker 1: and coaching staff if you want to, you know, go
Speaker 1: down that path, but in general, you know, you're there
Speaker 1: for hoops. And then I get a driveway with a
Speaker 1: basket that I spend a ton of time with my
Speaker 1: fifteen year old want to be point guard son, Sam Brown,
Speaker 1: and just love that. Amazingly, he still listens to me,
Speaker 1: and you know, I take out my anxiety and frustrations
Speaker 1: of not coaching on him, which is even more amazing
Speaker 1: that he lets me do what I do with him
Speaker 1: and have enjoyed, you know, that experience. I got a
Speaker 1: Georgetown daughter down in Georgetown, sadly showing this graduation, but
Speaker 1: she's she's a want to be dentist. She's down there
Speaker 1: trying to finish up with that side of it and
Speaker 1: move on to dentals school. And we just play, you know,
Speaker 1: touch tag with family and do tons with hoops. I'm
Speaker 1: always with Elton Brand and bam. You know, at that stage,
Speaker 1: it gets to be nine at night and I'm close
Speaker 1: to being ready to go to bid. You know, you
Speaker 1: are a public figure, and obviously everyone when you speak
Speaker 1: wants to hear about the basketball team and how it's
Speaker 1: doing and that sort of thing. But in the context
Speaker 1: of today's world, that anecdote about your daughter and not
Speaker 1: being able to experience a traditional graduation, regardless of what
Speaker 1: school it's from, that's a major milestone for her, not
Speaker 1: to be able to experience something like that. That's a
Speaker 1: touch point of how this whole situation is affecting everyday
Speaker 1: people in their everyday lives. Have you guys talked at
Speaker 1: all as a family about how you're going to celebrate
Speaker 1: at some point, Um, it's come. It's come slowly, and
Speaker 1: you know at some point it'll it'll be it'll be
Speaker 1: more formal. I'm sure there will be a real graduation.
Speaker 1: You know, next year is sometime or whenever joice sound
Speaker 1: you know, decides to do like many of the universities.
Speaker 1: But just the to your point like something like that,
Speaker 1: you know is stolen, and it's a it's a really
Speaker 1: it's a minto compared to what's really going on with everybody.
Speaker 1: But to your point of it does affect and way
Speaker 1: more than hoops all of us in different ways, and
Speaker 1: her not being able to graduate is a fair example. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, as a family, we have acknowledged that we
Speaker 1: we intend on doing something special for her and as
Speaker 1: a family, but it's probably just in general to the
Speaker 1: family question that has been elite. It's a thing that
Speaker 1: I've just I can't, you know, tell you that how
Speaker 1: much personally I've enjoyed being with my family. You know,
Speaker 1: you fifty nine years old. I've got an amazing wife,
Speaker 1: and we've got kids that are still into one roof
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna lose them quite soon, and so I'm
Speaker 1: enjoying this, you know, next few years while I got them.
Speaker 1: That's great. So now more to the mundane, the basketball stuff.
Speaker 1: You are as compartmentalized a coach as it comes. We've
Speaker 1: learned that over the last seven plus seasons. Can you
Speaker 1: walk me through the week with your staff, how you've
Speaker 1: structured it, what you hit when you're going through the
Speaker 1: work week right now, to make sure that your group
Speaker 1: is staying prepared. Yeah, and I'll try to make this
Speaker 1: as as detailed but quick as I can. When the
Speaker 1: eyes when the instruction you're not playing happened, we jump
Speaker 1: quickly into okay, go back to my routine thing. Now
Speaker 1: what And I set up my staff like an NFL
Speaker 1: staff is offense and defense and special teams and so on.
Speaker 1: Different coaches are responsible for different parts of that equation.
Speaker 1: I put out a syllabus right from the get go
Speaker 1: of this is how we're going to walk down this pandemic,
Speaker 1: and these are the areas that we're going to focus on.
Speaker 1: And it's something as simple as like what did we
Speaker 1: do well? What didn't we do well? Why and why?
Speaker 1: And when you ask that question and you take deep
Speaker 1: dives analytically and then apply it to what drills do
Speaker 1: you do? And then it's supported by video clips. Then
Speaker 1: it gets into you know, specifics with individuals. Then it
Speaker 1: creeps into how do you sub the team? What are
Speaker 1: the best player rotations? And it can go on and
Speaker 1: on and on and so the past two months with
Speaker 1: my bench coaches and the peripheral staff, which represents strength
Speaker 1: and condition code, it represents analytics people, the sports performance
Speaker 1: side of it all. It's deeper than just looking down
Speaker 1: at three you know, me and three bench coaches. It's
Speaker 1: it's all encompassing. And so for the past what is
Speaker 1: it eight weeks, you know, seven weeks. You know, we've
Speaker 1: walked down those topics on a zoom, you know zoom.
Speaker 1: There is obviously a huge benefit. None of us should
Speaker 1: think like this isn't going to carry forward in some
Speaker 1: way on how the world does business, which I think
Speaker 1: is an efficient, good way to do it. And you know,
Speaker 1: you can share videotape on screen. I can take a
Speaker 1: mouse and like move an arrow around and we're all
Speaker 1: like looking at the same thing. We really don't have
Speaker 1: to be in a room, and in many ways, you know,
Speaker 1: the distractions aren't as frequent, and you can cut to
Speaker 1: the chase. And so I'm unapologetic about the forum of
Speaker 1: which we've taken that syllabus that I've just explained, and
Speaker 1: walking down offense defense and then we're both three. We're
Speaker 1: done offense, We're both three. What is it the way
Speaker 1: through defense? And you know, along that those paths, you
Speaker 1: get into special situations. You know, cat shot need two,
Speaker 1: cat shot need three? You know, do you call it
Speaker 1: time out and advance the ball? Do you challenge We're
Speaker 1: all learning about the challenge you will now in the NBA,
Speaker 1: When is it a good time to challenge something as
Speaker 1: granular as that. I do that with you know, my
Speaker 1: bench coaches, and then I get a separate side of
Speaker 1: it where we do the same thing with the development coaches,
Speaker 1: and you know, we dig into the individual player. What's
Speaker 1: motifs got to do to get better? What does he
Speaker 1: do well? What does he need to improve on as
Speaker 1: an example, And you know, we go through that granula
Speaker 1: like bit by bit, whether it's pick and roll offense
Speaker 1: or you know, swing steps, slides defensively, whatever it is
Speaker 1: it is, but it's incremental, it is systematic, and we've
Speaker 1: walked through whether it's bench coaches or the development of
Speaker 1: my players with that type of format. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: with play is I'm always texting of face timing, you know,
Speaker 1: just checking in more than anything. With the team, there
Speaker 1: is no such thing as over communication. And then you know,
Speaker 1: from time to time we have our team zoom stuff
Speaker 1: and I really enjoy seeing their faces. I know Tobias
Speaker 1: has organized as the the I guess bartender team happy Hour,
Speaker 1: which the coaches weren't invited to, and I don't blame them. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like all those things Brian are going
Speaker 1: on that that really has made me feel like if
Speaker 1: somebody says it's go time the goal, we will, we will.
Speaker 1: We will be prepared to try to prepare to win
Speaker 1: a championship. You know, that's still the bottom line, is
Speaker 1: trying to put ourselves in a position to do that.
Speaker 1: To that note, we kind of live in imperfect times
Speaker 1: these days. I would love to play a game of
Speaker 1: in a perfect world. So let's fast forward. Who knows
Speaker 1: when it would be, but let's say the seventy six
Speaker 1: ers are taking the floor for Game one of the
Speaker 1: NBA Finals. In your mind when you map that out,
Speaker 1: what does the team look like, who's on the court,
Speaker 1: who's doing what? What are some of the things that
Speaker 1: you've tried to play out in your mind getting ready
Speaker 1: for this. I mean, I'll go like global instead of granular.
Speaker 1: Let's just start with Joel that he's in the best
Speaker 1: shape of his life, that he is just going rim
Speaker 1: to rim and the team around him. The teammates around
Speaker 1: him understand like, how do we help him, how do
Speaker 1: we get him the ball? In general, that's it Joel
Speaker 1: b Joel if he's got his fitness base and he's
Speaker 1: got that type of attention, and we and me as
Speaker 1: a coach do a good job of using it the
Speaker 1: way that we should. He's the best big man in
Speaker 1: the NBA and as dominant as they come Ben Simmons.
Speaker 1: You know, we've learned over time that that he it's
Speaker 1: more than he has the ball. Ben dribble at a
Speaker 1: thousand miles an hour and go ahead and beat five
Speaker 1: guys like that environment. He's got way more to offer
Speaker 1: and give. And I've taken him off the ball as
Speaker 1: the season has unfolded, and dribs and drabs and previous
Speaker 1: year's playoffs as well, and so this year we've done
Speaker 1: it more and more and more. He's so gifted and
Speaker 1: you know, none of us can forget as a two
Speaker 1: time All Star, I think a perspective defensive Player of
Speaker 1: the year, a max contract guy, and he's twenty three.
Speaker 1: It's a young age. It's a really young age. And
Speaker 1: so Ben's utilization need doing a good job, a better
Speaker 1: job of like using him in different environments to tap
Speaker 1: into all the skills that he had. It would look
Speaker 1: something like that. You go to Jay Rich, you know
Speaker 1: it's that dog defensive player, putting him on the side
Speaker 1: of the floor where he can turn corners in school,
Speaker 1: like I know that he wants to really tapping him
Speaker 1: into him where I think he has the most ability
Speaker 1: to offensively impact the game. You get into al hoof
Speaker 1: Tobias his growth as a defensive player and continuing to
Speaker 1: promote him as a score and placing him in those
Speaker 1: floor spots where he can hunt, freeze and do some
Speaker 1: of the things that we've seen him do. You know,
Speaker 1: all those things interest me and you know, instead of
Speaker 1: going through like everybody's roadmap, those are probably the high
Speaker 1: level things. The excitement that we all have and seeing
Speaker 1: what's happening with Shake and Burke. You know, the excitement
Speaker 1: we have in drafting Fatise in that bounce, that pogo
Speaker 1: stick bounce, that he has the tenacity of a Mike Scott.
Speaker 1: You know the excitement of getting those two new players
Speaker 1: in at the all startbreak and Glenn Robinson and Alec Burke,
Speaker 1: and you know, all those things I think add up
Speaker 1: to what you wished it could look like, would look
Speaker 1: like if somebody says you're playing again? More about cooking,
Speaker 1: Ted Talks and Tunes with Brett Brown and about fifteen seconds.
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Speaker 1: with Brett Brown if you're up for it, as we
Speaker 1: begin to wrap up a couple of quick rapid fire
Speaker 1: quarantine questions for you. I hate this game, all right,
Speaker 1: we'll try to make it tolerable. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say the best meal you've cooked, the most challenging or
Speaker 1: fulfilling rewarding meal that you've cooked for your family so far.
Speaker 1: I'd go with the potato noki and pink sauce as
Speaker 1: as a challenge. You know, the simplest and one of
Speaker 1: my favorite it's just basic croc pot beef stew. Like
Speaker 1: you can't go you can't screw up a croc pot.
Speaker 1: But I say the potato nochi with pink sauce, and
Speaker 1: pulling that off was a challenge, and I was quite
Speaker 1: proud how it came out best Ted Talk Neil deGrasse Tyson,
Speaker 1: like I think that he's just a star, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm so fascinated by just like how he thinks,
Speaker 1: how he presents. There's a doctor if I can have
Speaker 1: a second choice. Larry Brilliant, who on Ted Talked two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, talked talked about you know, expect the pandemic,
Speaker 1: expects some two thousand and six and like you start
Speaker 1: going through it and you start learning about, you know,
Speaker 1: what happened in nineteen eighteen with the Spanish flu, and
Speaker 1: it is eminent. None of us can say, oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that there's a pan like this. This
Speaker 1: was well documented by also Bill Gates, you know a
Speaker 1: whole And so the Ted Talk world for sure has
Speaker 1: influenced my time. I get into like a wide variety
Speaker 1: of just go to website so I can get some
Speaker 1: perspective on my version of the truth in it equals
Speaker 1: something like BBC News, El Jazeera. I do the Fox
Speaker 1: CNN thing as I should. I jump into the Self Pacific,
Speaker 1: you know, the Age out of Australia and find like
Speaker 1: some even though there's a Chin China Global, you know
Speaker 1: it's a dark a website on their version of the truth.
Speaker 1: All of it interests me. And from that vision line,
Speaker 1: I make my own decisions. What's on your playlist? What
Speaker 1: music are you listening to? Been going hard at Van Morrison? Uh,
Speaker 1: just really getting into Van Morrison even more. Um. There's
Speaker 1: an Australian UH musician Paul Kelly. Uh, that is excellent,
Speaker 1: just the a great storytelling, you know, like I got
Speaker 1: into Dire Straits Mark and Offler a lot in my
Speaker 1: early life and still just appreciate his ability to tell stories.
Speaker 1: It's a thing I love in Bruce Springstein and you
Speaker 1: know some of those musicians have beat up on my
Speaker 1: Spotify list. I don't know if you saw this, but
Speaker 1: recently Springsteen released a live recording from I want to say.
Speaker 1: It was the final night of maybe a five or
Speaker 1: six show run that he played at the Meadowlands during
Speaker 1: the summer leg of the River Tour, which would have
Speaker 1: been nineteen eighty one. I don't know if you've heard
Speaker 1: about that. I listened to it yet, and you know what,
Speaker 1: I have heard about it, but I have not listened
Speaker 1: to it. I've heard about it. It would interest me
Speaker 1: very very much. He I mean, I grew up with him.
Speaker 1: My roommate in Roosh University was from Freehold, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: so you know, many many, many times Jersey show of Freehold,
Speaker 1: like that connection got me going, and it was like
Speaker 1: the start of the Born to Run album jumped out
Speaker 1: my senior year in high school. So here's my circuitous
Speaker 1: way of hopefully asking a somewhat pointed question at the
Speaker 1: end of this long winded point. I'm listening to this
Speaker 1: recording from the River Tour and Springstein in the band.
Speaker 1: They've already played twenty seven songs and they stay out
Speaker 1: there for one more twenty eighth and final song in
Speaker 1: the encore, and it is a total, all out, put
Speaker 1: your pedal to the floor fifteen minute medley of all
Speaker 1: these Detroit motown songs. Anyone who's a fan enough of
Speaker 1: Springsteen or have heard any of his live shows from
Speaker 1: that era know the medley that he does, and the
Speaker 1: recording of the show is so good, so pristine. You
Speaker 1: can hear Springsteen panning, gasping for air, trying to catch
Speaker 1: his breath. He is leaving everything out there like he's
Speaker 1: going for his last gasp. And so I'm thinking about this.
Speaker 1: I know that you're a fan of his and he
Speaker 1: is so relentless as performer, and I feel that when
Speaker 1: we look back on your time here with the seventy
Speaker 1: six ers, there's one relentless aspect to your job approach
Speaker 1: as well. Is that part of the reason why you
Speaker 1: feel like Springsteen's music resonates with you as their connection
Speaker 1: there a shared trade or quality. He's a snapshot to
Speaker 1: a bunch of great things for all of us. And
Speaker 1: I'll get specific as it relates to what I see.
Speaker 1: Let's start with he's an amazing shape, Like he really
Speaker 1: to live a life as a rock and roll person
Speaker 1: and the fame and the fortune and the travel and
Speaker 1: still have a level of health. You know, he reads
Speaker 1: and seems to be a great family man. You look
Speaker 1: at his children, like how his children have come out,
Speaker 1: you would think, like that's really hard to do, and
Speaker 1: you'd have to say his health must be a great
Speaker 1: starting point. Then you get into like the passion he
Speaker 1: loves what he does. He must he must, And then
Speaker 1: you can into like he's smart, he's he's he's really
Speaker 1: detailed and creative and smart. And so you weigh those
Speaker 1: few things up and to your point. Like the last
Speaker 1: song of probably like a three hour concert, like he
Speaker 1: just brains it, and you know, you see it in
Speaker 1: his face. You look at him, he's just drenched and sweat.
Speaker 1: Like I had a great experience looking at him on
Speaker 1: Broadway a year ago, and like it's like he's in
Speaker 1: your living room and you're just blown away. And his
Speaker 1: wife would come out, you know, and and accompanying him
Speaker 1: from time to time. But he's really just telling stories
Speaker 1: in his living room. And I could talk about him
Speaker 1: for a long time. Um, you know, just from Afar,
Speaker 1: there's just a tremendous respect of how he's lived his
Speaker 1: life and how good he is. And you know, like
Speaker 1: like all of us, he's getting older, a stud. We'll
Speaker 1: leave it at this. You always talk so affectionately and
Speaker 1: passionately about the fans of Philadelphia seventy sixers fans. The
Speaker 1: floor is yours. You got a message for him? I
Speaker 1: mean just you're so grateful and let's just go to
Speaker 1: a home record for the passion and the oath that
Speaker 1: you give us. It's uh, they wear their heart on
Speaker 1: the sleeve. Uh, the real and uh you know there's
Speaker 1: an element with it. They're they're on you. Um, and
Speaker 1: it's a good thing. It's just it's a it goes
Speaker 1: back to that. I think we just talked about that
Speaker 1: passion like that's a good thing. And um, we we
Speaker 1: miss our fans. I'll stay safe and well and I'm
Speaker 1: glad to have the opportunity to say that. Well put
Speaker 1: Coach Brown. Great to hear you, even better to see you.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, seem from a crock pot Favorites to
Speaker 1: Neil de grass Tyson and his hopes for the seventy
Speaker 1: sixers should this season resume. Excellent to hear from Brett Brann.
Speaker 1: We've been trying to put out as much fresh content
Speaker 1: as possible here on the pod feed. If you miss
Speaker 1: some of our episodes and shows while least this past week,
Speaker 1: certainly encourage you to go back and check them out.
Speaker 1: We had a new edition of Posted Up, presented by
Speaker 1: Caesar's Online profiling Tobias Harris and In the newest episode
Speaker 1: of Tom's Talks with Tom McGinnis, he catches up with
Speaker 1: Ed Pink, the former Villanova standout who's going on to
Speaker 1: be a coach and scout in the NBA, and even
Speaker 1: if you remember, a television announcer with the seventy six ers.
Speaker 1: So again, that's some of the new stuff on our
Speaker 1: pod feed from this past week. I'm Brian Seltzer saying
Speaker 1: so long for now, Stay safe and healthy out there,
Speaker 1: and thanks as always for listening to see Yah