The old Chevy truck has a mile or two left.
More importantly, there is some wisdom left to impart.
Elton Brand, the ultimate veteran presence on two Sixers playoff teams, including one that was just minutes from advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals, has returned to the fold after an abbreviated retirement from the NBA.
This time, though, Brand’s contribution to the team will have less to do with what he does on the on the court and more what he does behind the scenes.
Call Brand Obi-Wan to Jahlil Okafor’s Luke Skywalker.
“I can effect change and be a part of something,” Brand said.
Lacking a veteran NBA player on the youngest team in the NBA, the Sixers have made a series of moves to improve a team that lost its first 18 games of the season and a record-breaking 28 in a row. On Christmas Eve, the Sixers traded for veteran point guard Ish Smith, who immediately helped the team win two games in his first three appearances.
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The Sixers also reached out to Jason Richardson to fill the veteran leadership void before coming to terms with Brand. Not coincidentally, acquiring Smith and Brand came shortly after the Jerry Colangelo came aboard as the chairman of basketball operations.
The moves make sense, head coach Brett Brown said.
“The reality of 20-year-olds and the NBA to think we could scoot through the entire year without voices of Elton’s caliber [was a mistake],” Brown said. “Knowing what we know now, maybe we’re a little smarter after events.”
Still, Brown had to be convinced that the addition of Brand was a wise one. With Brand aboard, the Sixers waived undrafted rookie Christian Wood, a player with potential but in need of playing time. Because he wasn’t getting the time he needed with the Sixers, Wood could find it overseas or in the D-League.
Playing time is not something Brand is seeking too much of. Last season with the Atlanta Hawks, Brand appeared in just 36 games, averaging a little more than 13 minutes per. He scored just 2.7 points with 2.8 rebounds per game, a far cry from the 25 and 10 he averaged with the Clippers during his All-Star years a decade ago.
Besides, retirement suited Brand, who made his home in the Philadelphia suburbs. He settled into a routine of taking his kids to school and hanging at home, doing yoga and living the life of a retired athlete with nearly 1,100 NBA games under his belt.
Come out of retirement to join a team that entered Monday’s game at 3-33?
What for?
“I was asking myself that,” Brand said. “We had contact and the Sixers were interested in having me in some kind of a role. I live here, and my kids go to school here. I was offered assistant GM, I was offered TV gigs, but I turned everything down. When it was something local and with the Sixers and something dear to my heart, that’s when I took it under consideration.
“As a player, coming back, it seemed more interesting to me.”
But Brand thought he had something to offer despite the fact that he has no interest in becoming a coach or a front-office honcho. If Brand was going to make an impact, it would have to be as a player, he thought.
“To listen to him tell me his motives to do something like this, it was very appealing to me as a head coach,” Brown said. “When you have the volume of the 20-year-olds we have, his role will be one of guidance, mentorship. Of course, we understand he has 17,000-something NBA points and you combine that with he’s a good person.”
Brown suspects Brand’s impact will be immediate. If for no other reason, Brand will be the adult in the room during halftime and on the bench of games as well as at practice. Brown has continually talked this season about the Sixers’ inability to “walk down” a game in crunch time or stand up to veteran NBA teams during tough stretches.
Brand will be able to impart his wisdom in such situations the way Kevin Garnett has helped the youthful Minnesota Timberwolves.
“You wouldn’t believe what goes on at halftime when the coach is in another room,” Brown said. “You wouldn’t believe what goes on on the bench when you’re down 20 or what goes on in players’ minds when it’s a two-point game with a minute left and if they know their assignments. It is so much deeper than putting a suit on him and thinking you’re going to get the value out of him that I want to get out of him.”
Perhaps the most value Brand will have is working alongside Okafor, a fellow big man from Duke who has been carrying the franchise even though he just turned 20 last month. When Brand broke in with the Bulls in 1999, he had veteran teammates like Will Perdue, Hersey Hawkins, B.J. Armstrong and John Starks.
Until Carl Landry was activated last month, the oldest active Sixer was Robert Covington, who turned 25 the first week of December.
“I’ve talked to the coaches at Duke about him and they’re really happy that he’s around me and on the team,” Okafor said.
“At Duke you always heard about the great big men and he played the same position I play and I heard about him a lot when I was in college. I’m excited to learn from him and I’m excited he’s on the team.”
Okafor has heard from his friends at Duke and from around the NBA that Brand’s reputation is no joke.
“He’s real,” Okafor said. “He doesn’t sugarcoat anything.”
That’s what Brown learned after conversations with Brand about the comeback. Though he was satisfied with his NBA career and happy just being a dad and a husband, Brand is going to give it one more try.
“Incredibly with the volumes of money he’s made and the success he’s had, he still sees this as a challenge and one I appreciate him accepting,” Brown said.
So with that the old Chevy truck is ready for one more spin around the block. Though he says he’s been working out, it will take some time for Brand to regain NBA shape. Even then, Brand admits he’ll be “serviceable.”
But no one asked Obi-Wan to take down Darth Vader in a duel. There are other ways to take down an empire.
“I might not make it to the end when things are really great around here,” Brand said. “But I can be apart of something.”