Sixers coach Brett Brown has earned a reputation for being upfront with the media that covers his team. In fact, there have been times when Brown has heard from the public relations staff for being a little too honest in certain situations.
Moreover, if he is presented with information about his team, Brown has been very good in confirming a story’s accuracy. When stories about Joel Embiid’s fitness and workouts arose last season, Brown had no issue with presenting the truth.
So when a story came out on Friday morning from “The Cauldron,” a feature on the Sports Illustrated web site detailing major concerns over the Sixers' rebuilding process involving Brown, Sam Hinkie, Embiid and Dario Saric, Brown wasted little time offering his side of things.
“In general, what everybody has written has been factual, previously. There were portions that were factual that had been well documented early on,” Brown said before Friday night’s preseason game against the Washington Wizards at the Wells Fargo Center. “When you read about portions that have been reported, there are portions that are wildly inaccurate.”
One portion of the story Brown said was wildly inaccurate was when it alleged that Brown and Hinkie were given strict instructions to keep Embiid from going to Las Vegas for the NBA summer league. Embiid was not playing in the league and was going to have a second surgery for his navicular bone in his foot shortly after the summer league, and apparently, team owner Josh Harris did not want him there, according to the story.
That’s a new one to Brown.
“I don’t know what that means or why it was said and it’s one of those things that we move on from,” Brown said. “We’re treating it as noise and we’re going to move on from it.”
NBA
Brown has done a pretty good job at shielding his young team from things that could be a distraction or cause controversy. One of the ways he has been able to stay above the fray is by ignoring what he calls, “noise.”
“It’s not [a distraction]. I’m a social hermit by nature," Brown said. "I go to a gym and I go home and I go to a gym and I go home. I don’t pay attention much and I tell my staff I’m on a need-to-know basis when it comes to tom-toms in the marketplace. I’m told this journalist has a long record of writing articles that are not in support of what we’re doing here and that’s fair.
“I understand that in today’s day and age ‘a source says’ or ‘unnamed people declare’ and all bets are off. You can go in whatever direction you want. But the part that disappoints me more than anything is you look at Joel Embiid and he lost his brother on this day last year and the article comes out today with some of the accusations as it relates to now.”
The part of the article that sensationalizes Embiid has been well documented, Brown says.
“It’s just wildly unfair some of the accusations as it relates to now. This story is old. The media in front of me did a helluva job of reporting accurately what has been going on,” Brown said. “So to wake up and have these things be revisited, I think it’s unfortunate and sad particularly because of the timing.”
While talking with reporters, Brown remembered a time when his college coach Rick Pitino booted him from practice at Boston University when he was 19. It happens, the coach said.
“I’m proud of Joel Embiid,” Brown said. “He’s had a rough few years of not playing and he will get there.”