It turns out, Bryan Colangelo’s exit from the Sixers’ front office is even better news for Brett Brown than we originally thought. And maybe bad news for Jay Wright?
Aside from being temporarily placed in a quasi-GM role, it appears the move has also saved Brown’s job. Because even with all of the Sixers’ recent success, Bryan and his father Jerry Colangelo were reportedly never fully in with Brown being the coach.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski shed some light in this video posted by WIP’s Joe Giglio.
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Here’s the full text of what Woj said:
“Brett Brown was never Bryan Colangelo’s coach or Jerry Colangelo's coach. And when they came in, when Jerry Colangelo took over, he put Mike D’Antoni on Brett Brown’s staff. Mike D’Antoni wasn’t put there just to be an assistant coach. Their plan, their hope was, eventually Mike D’Antoni would be the head coach. But Mike D’Antoni got the Houston Rockets’ job. And even through the great progress they made this year, getting to the second round of the playoffs, winning 50-plus regular season games, there was always a thought in the Colangelos’ mind that they’d get their own guy in there. And the guy they had always targeted, I’m told, was Jay Wright at Villanova. But they underestimated how popular Brett Brown was with the fans, ownership and the players. And the spirit with which Brown carries himself has permeated that organization.”
Interesting.
NBA
D’Antoni is obviously coaching the Rockets these days and helped Houston nearly take down the likely NBA Finals champion Golden State Warriors. And Wright just coached the Wildcats to their second championship in three seasons.
Not long ago, the New York Daily News reported the Knicks were going to reach out to Wright about their open coaching job, but Wright has made it pretty clear he wants to stay at Villanova.
In an interview with The Athletic in April, Wright said he was intrigued by the NBA, but couldn’t see himself giving up the Villanova program to make it happen.
It was obvious it would have to be a perfect situation. It’s fair to wonder if that would have been the Sixers. Now, it looks like we’ll never know.