Philadelphia 76ers: Stop only blaming Brett Brown for Jimmy Butler’s exit

Will the Philadelphia 76ers hold Elton Brand accountable for Jimmy Butler?

Shipping Jimmy Butler to the Miami Heat for Josh Richardson may just go down as the worst trade in Philadelphia 76ers history.

Yes, that’s a pretty lofty assertion. Yes, technically, the deal was a sign-and-trade and wasn’t meant to be a 1-for-1, equal value move, and yes, Butler (probably) wasn’t going to re-sign with the team had he even been offered a deal, but I don’t care. Did the Andrew Bynum trade turn a division rival into a legitimate championship contender? Did it turn two homegrown starters into one? Did it transform the team from a bounce away from a championship to yet another rebuild on the fly with no clear endgame?

And worst of all, the right people aren’t even getting blamed for putting a once-promising team into this incredibly unadvantageous situation.

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That’s right, while Joel Embiid gets publicly scorned for subtweeting the organization he himself is the face-of through a pair of briefly pointed, well, tweets, a small but increasingly vocal segment of the basketball world is spreading a rumor that Brett Brown is the reason Butler opted out of the Process for the sandy beaches and increased humidity of South Beach.

Allow me to elaborate, if you will.

You see, it’s basically an accepted fact that Embiid and Butler grew incredibly close during their close-to-a-season together in South Philly. Embiid played harder under Butler’s watchful eye, and the duo formed a pretty impressive tandem on the court. The same, however, could not be said for Ben Simmons, who Butler reportedly criticized for his laissez-faire attitude and unwillingness to attempt 3 pointers at a reasonable clip. Because Brown is a long-time friend of the Simmons family, he was often viewed as slightly (or decidedly not so slightly) lenient towards the 2018 Rookie of the Year, giving him a pass for his easy-breezy nature where other coaches may crack the whip.

This lack of accountability, mixed with Butler’s publicly acknowledged film room spat heard ’round the world back in January left many to understandably heap a buttload more blame on the grave of Brown’s coaching career in South Philly.

Insert the “Stop, stop! He’s already dead,” gif here.

But here’s the thing: Sometimes, it’s not just one person’s fault. Life is seldom that simple and when it does wade into a murkier grey area, it becomes harder to find concrete answers in a decidedly malleable world.

Was Coach Brown wrong to coddle Simmons and avoid handing Butler the keys to the show in the fourth quarter a whole lot sooner? Should he have pushed his own ego aside and run his offense through his best players, the very same way he did all the way back in 2017-18 when he cashed in a fast-paced, ball-movement-heavy offense for a more methodical attack centered around Embiid? Most definitely but my goodness, Brown wasn’t the man who traded away a sizeable chunk of the franchise’s future to the LA Clippers, Brown didn’t ask for yet another continuity-robbing midseason facelift, and by god Brown isn’t responsible for tendering Tobias Harris the richest contract in franchise history.

That, unfortunately, is all on Elton Brand, who has the exact same job today as he did a month ago.

In theory, adding Harris made sense, and prioritizing him over Butler did too, to a lesser extent if you really squint your eyes. Before joining the Philadelphia 76ers, Harris boasted one of the deadliest 3 point shots in the NBA, an impressive feat for a 6-foot-8 combo forward. But that wasn’t all, in addition to being a three-level scorer capable of getting his equally well off the dribble and off a well-placed pass, Harris came to our fair city with a reputation for being a team-first non-diva, which, in case you hadn’t noticed at the time, was sorely lacking on a team with more personality than it knew what to do with. If building around Simmons and Embiid was the ultimate goal for the Philadelphia 76ers – which it was, is, and will continue to be until one or the other is traded or the team wins a ‘chip – removing a ‘me, me, me’-player like Butler for a quiet veteran like Harris wasn’t the worst plan.

It didn’t obviously work, but hey, that was the idea.

When Brand traded for Harris, one has to assume he knew deep down that maybe the ‘Jimmy Butler experiment’ wasn’t long for the City of Brotherly Love and he wanted a backup plan just in case? Maybe Brand genuinely believed that Harris was a better fit to Embiid and Simmons, as Butler has maintained one of the least impressive 3 point shooting percentages of any shooting guard on a playoff team this season – or at least didn’t want to look foolish for allowing him to walk in free agency? Or maybe still, in a ‘him or me’ situation, Brand picked a then-23-year-old point forward over an over-30 shooting guard who couldn’t seem to keep things copasetic anywhere he laid his minivan and cowboy boots?

Heck, if Brand was already so close to firing Brown during the 2018-19 playoffs, why not keep your best three players in-house and find a no-nonsense head coach to shepherd them to the promised land? Monty Williams turned a putrid Suns squad into the darlings of the NBA Bubble with a far less defined roster and he had the luxury of 67 games as Butler’s lead assistant. Was that never even considered?

*sigh* whatever the case may be, if we ever know it at all, it’s clear Brand has oh so much more to do with Butler’s exit than Butler, Brown, or even Simmons, all of whom probably could have made things work if they were treated with the respect their positions deserved.

But no. Instead, Jimmy Butler asked to be traded to the Miami Heat despite being Joel Embiid’s best friend on the team and (presumably) being given a thumbs up from Brett Brown to return on a max contract, and in his place, Elton Brand stocked his effective lame-duck head coach with a collection of bigger non-shooters and handed him a simple task: Championship or Bust. Can Jimmy Butler be the best player on a championship team? Maybe not every championship team, but if things continue to go right in Miami, he soon very well may be. And as for the Philadelphia 76ers? Well, at least they got rid of Brett Brown, and now the team will be held adequately accountable.