Like most everyone affiliated with the Philadelphia 76ers, owner Josh Harris was thrilled after Jimmy Butler did what Jimmy Butler was brought to town to do and drilled a game-winning, sidestep 3-pointer at Barclays Center in late November. But as his rookie general manager Elton Brand approached, hand raised for an expected high-five, Harris quickly learned that, when it comes to excitement, there are levels to this — and he wasn’t ready for what came next.
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“I think the high-five that he gave me after we beat the Nets spun me around three times,” Harris recently said with a laugh. “He’s a bit bigger than me.”
By the time Harris stopped spinning, he understood the passion underneath those finely-tailored Italian suits, the competitiveness that fueled a 17-year playing career and the fire inside the quiet demeanor that led to this unique moment in franchise history. The 76ers’ once gruesome, years-long rebuild has now yielded to the unavoidable burden of expectations. And, with so much on the line — and two lead executives already gone after resigning under controversial circumstances — the 76ers are relying on a novice to take a promising franchise to the pinnacle. But Brand has been preparing for this chance, behind the scenes and in dues-paying fashion, even before he decided he was done getting buckets.
Roughly three years removed from his last double-double, Brand has still never turned in his retirement paperwork. Part of it is the baller in him that won’t ever go away: the baller that his friend and long-time agent David Falk said “could still play right now. I won’t say he’d be a great player but he can play.” Sitting in his spacious office at the 76ers’ practice facility in Camden, N.J., with a personally-made, Tidal hip-hop mix playing lightly in the background, Brand joked recently that there might be another reason for his reluctance.
“I know I had an OK career but I know it’s not Hall of Fame, so there was not a rush to be eligible. So I never retired,” Brand said, noting how he recalls some players, like Keith Van Horn, not officially retiring and getting signed to new contracts and thrown into trades to make the money match up. “So I could trade Elton Brand and a second-round pick for…”
Brand leaned back to laugh. But seriously, Brand will do whatever it takes to push the 76ers organization closer to winning the championship that has eluded them for 36 years. That’s one of the reasons why Brand, just two months into his new gig, made the bold move of expediting The Process by adding Butler to a team that wants more after tanking its way into two potentially-transcendent talents in Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.
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With Harris working closely with Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor to get something done and Brand communicating daily with Timberwolves general manager Scott Layden, the 76ers snared a disgruntled, four-time All-Star in exchange for two of Brand’s former teammates. Based on his past two situations, Butler’s presence has long served as a truth-telling mirror to whatever problems exist within an organization. His ability to fit — or not — alongside two stars who have already formed an awkward and sometimes uncomfortable alliance could come to define Brand’s tenure with the organization.
Brand understood the risk but was also aware that scared money don’t make no money.
“The way Joel is playing,” Brand said, explaining his reasoning for the deal, “I don’t see why he’s not the MVP, if we win more. The way Ben Simmons is playing and developing. I looked at it, like this window is a lot closer than I anticipated and other teams aren’t standing pat. Like, ‘Oh, yeah, we’ll wait for the Sixers to develop.’ No, they’re making moves, too. They’re trying to put together more super teams in other markets. I never got a ring. I feel like I have a responsibility to these players to get the best team around them now because that’s how good they are now. … I have to take a shot.”
And, after Butler’s shot in Brooklyn, Brand expressed his gratitude to the 76ers’ clutch new addition, slapping five with someone his own size.
“I’m happy because he was happy for me, and the team. Don’t get me wrong, I did what you brought me here to do, to help you win games, especially late, that makes me smile,” Butler said. “He comes to me, like, ‘Thank you.’ And I’m like, ‘Thank you, for letting me play the game that I love.’ Back to smiling and having fun. I give that all back to E.B.”
If Brand had decided to take a different path in his post-basketball life — and dedicated more time to his film production company or settled into a comfortable role as a stay-at-home dad with millions in the bank — few would’ve faulted him. He didn’t have to dedicate himself to a year-long grind that includes trying to assemble a talented roster, maintaining productive relationships with players, agents and ownership, dousing the occasional locker room brush fire and keeping his staff motivated.
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But he wanted this life, even if it meant fighting his way up the ranks, serving as a for-hire mentor for The Process youngsters, getting stranded in a snowstorm scouting G-League talent in Oshkosh, Wisc., or opening himself up to more second-guess scrutiny and criticism than he ever encountered on the other side of this business. And, given the dearth of African-American former players afforded the chance to lead a franchise, Brand also believes he’s been granted an opportunity that’s greater than himself.
“When you’re young, you’re successful, you’re cocky. I thought, OK, Michael got six rings, I’ll go to the Bulls and get at least three, four. Ha, ha. And then I’m like, ‘I can’t win a game,’” Brand said with a laugh about his attitude as he entered the league as the No. 1 pick in 1999. “I was traded, two years in, Rookie of the Year, averaging 20 and 10. I got the max and I’m injured. I got amnestied, brought back. Waited for calls. Signed for above the minimum. All-Stars mixed in-between there, All-Star snubs, like I’ve seen it, been there done that.
“As I got older, I’ve just been humbled, just by life,” he said. “Ego. I don’t care. Whatever someone thinks or says, it’s like, ‘Aw, man. Elton Brand is doing the G League? An All-Star? Or Elton Brand is coming back to a 10-win team?’ I try to always look at the bigger picture and take advantage of the opportunities that have been given because you never know where they can lead, which as you see, it lead to running your own franchise.”
Brand was inadvertently moving in the direction of a front-office position throughout his career. He had the work ethic and production to galvanize locker rooms, the curiosity and hunger for new challenges that made it impossible to become a couch bum, and he’d left every stop with a reputation for being a class act.
Falk lists Brand, Michael Jordan, John Lucas, Phil Ford, Patrick Ewing and Juwan Howard among the clients with whom he gravitated the most in more than four decades in the business. One became an owner, four have gone into coaching and now Brand is the executive.
“He’s a natural for it,” Falk said. “He’s got great people skills. People like him. It wasn’t that I always thought he’d be a GM but he’s a really smart guy. He doesn’t want to do nothing, doesn’t want to be bored. … I think he’ll be really good at it, as long as they let him do the job.”
Having done some opposition research in other roles, with other organizations, former Hawks general manager Wes Wilcox had known about Brand well before Brand joined the team as a free agent in 2013. Brand was someone who’d show up to the Los Angeles Clippers practice gym carrying a bag of tapes to watch film and study and was the cliched first-in-last-out guy.
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But in his time in Atlanta, Wilcox got to observe for himself as Brand rarely played but was a respected locker-room presence on a team that won a franchise-record 60 games in 2014-15. Wilcox took note when Brand would take a trek to the back of the team plane to discuss the game and, Mike Budenholzer, then-coach and lead executive of the Hawks, agreed with Wilcox that they should look to hire Brand for a front-office position.
“One of his incredible strengths is his humility,” Wilcox said. “The No. 1 pick in the draft and he comes at this with great humility and an incredible work rate. And it was really a situation where, ‘We love you, we think incredibly highly of you. You add value to the organization in a front office role.’ We thought he’d be great in any role.”
The Hawks were willing to let Brand work in whatever capacity he felt comfortable. Brand was flattered but not necessarily ready to retire. And when he shadowed Hawks execs to see what commitment was required for the position, Brand declined. He was caught between not knowing if he was done playing and not ready to miss out on school plays and gymnastics classes for his kids. “He doesn’t want to do anything he’s not going to commit 100 percent to,” Wilcox said. The Hawks went on to hire Malik Rose, whom Budenholzer knew from their time in San Antonio, instead.
Brand and his wife, Shahara Simmons, had maintained a residence in suburban Philadelphia from a relatively unfulfilling four-year run with the 76ers that was undone mostly by injuries. Proximity opened the door for opportunity when the 76ers found themselves in desperate need of a veteran presence, following an embarrassing incident in which then-rookie Jahlil Okafor got into a couple of fights outside of a Boston bar. Former 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie made the initial call, first wanting Brand around as sort of the big brother with access to a corporate credit card. Brand became more intrigued when the position required him to be in the locker room as a player.
“I didn’t watch a lot of Sixers because it wasn’t good ball. They were bad,” said Brand, who studied sociology at Duke before leaving early for the NBA and was taking courses in institutional racism, environmental racism and Spanish at suburban Philly’s Lincoln University while waiting for another shot in the league.
Hinkie resigned shortly after Brand arrived but Bryan Colangelo’s arrival set up Brand for his post-playing career. Brand marveled at the positivity of the players in the midst of the losing and how coach Brett Brown created an environment in which the players refused to quit. He seldom played but made an impression in practice, recalling the time when he realized Embiid wasn’t just some big dude who was hurt all the time and loved Shirley Temples.
“I mean, at the beginning of this, people in that gym can attest to it, I was on fire. I was lighting that gym (up). Old school. Still midrange. I was winning some games. After three weeks, it was over. I’m like, this dude can be all-time great,” Brand said of Embiid, who was held out of his first two seasons with injury. “That’s how good Joel was. You know, I’m an old guy, I can hang my (hat) on defense. He was so big, he could shoot the ball, could dribble, the athleticism. So, he did a one-two, middle, then came the drop step, And just banged on me. I may or may not have fell into the wall. It was one of those bad ones.”
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Rose, a Philadelphia native who is now assistant general manager of the Detroit Pistons, served as a play-by-play announcer for his hometown team before joining the Hawks and, watching from afar, coined the nickname “old-school Chevy” for Brand. “Because he was always reliable, he ran great. I have a ’68 Chevy Nova and I love that car. That’s what I likened Elton to. He could play 10 games or not play for a month straight. He was always ready and when he stepped on the court, he got numbers.”
The 76ers won just 10 games that season, a tanktastic performance, that resulted in landing the No. 1 pick in Simmons. That team nearly broke the 1972-73 76ers’ all-time record for futility at 9-73, but Brand helped save them from an unwanted historical record. His reward for being handed all of those Ls would come months later, when Colangelo offered Brand a consulting position within the organization. Brand used that time to offer tips to Embiid (don’t fall for Al Horford’s pump fake) as his career finally began. A year later, Brand was running the 76ers’ G League team, the Delaware Blue Coats.
“The Sixers, the ownership group, they talked the succession plan, in the future. Keep growing, we’ll give you the resources and tools, we hope it’s for us, but you’ll be a GM one day. It was those kind of talks then,” Brand said. “They gave me all-access. That’s when I was like, ‘Wow. I like this.’
“On draft night, I’m in the war room, or whatever they call it, and I’m in Bryan Colangelo’s office, listening to him talk about big trades, possibilities. GMs are pitching him different ideas. … To me, you can’t do this, if you never did that. Because you’d take it for granted. You really have to grind, you really have to study players, you really have to figure it out. So, I enjoyed that.”
When the 76ers hired Brand, he became just the fifth black general manager/team president in the NBA, joining Toronto’s Masai Ujiri, New York’s Steve Mills and Scott Perry, the Los Angeles Lakers’ Magic Johnson and New Orleans’ Dell Demps. The Phoenix Suns have since placed James Jones in the role of interim general manager, giving Jones the chance to earn the position on a full-time basis after replacing the fired Ryan McDonough.
Brand said Jones called him almost immediately after the appointment to thank him for providing the visibility that made his promotion possible. Rose, who joined the Pistons’ front office last summer, is pulling for Brand to succeed with the hope that it will open for doors for those with similar backgrounds.
“In this role, I’m representing, it’s funny — like I don’t want to quote any Jay-Z lyrics, but when he said, ‘I’m getting ’em back for what they did to the Cold Crush’ — I just felt like I had to take the opportunity,” Brand said. “There was a little, not pressure, but it was bigger than me wanting to do yoga, riding my bike and hanging with my kids. I’ve got to take this opportunity for those that didn’t get this opportunity, that would’ve been great at it but didn’t get the shot.”
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The NBA has long promoted itself as the most progressive of the four major professional sports, but that embrace of diversity in a league in which the players are nearly 75 percent black isn’t always reflected in executive hires. The trend toward more analytical-leaning backgrounds (in addition to the seemingly-fading push toward coaches getting dual titles as president of basketball operations) boxed out former players for several years, with the language of numbers connecting with a wave of hedge-fund and private-equity firm money owners. After Doc Rivers was stripped of his head of basketball operations duties, Demps and Johnson were the only African-American former NBA players with final say in basketball-related decisions before Brand came along.
Brand’s hiring came as the result of an unexpected three-month search after his predecessor Bryan Colangelo became the first general manager to lose his position because of burner accounts on social media, which disclosed private information and scathing criticisms of players. Though Colangelo wasn’t found to be behind the accounts, the perception that someone closely connected to the organization was behind it prompted the need for a change.
Brown was handed a dual role in the interim but had no desire in holding both roles on a permanent basis.
“I don’t believe that they work. You just realize the responsibility that that role has and the dynamics that an organization needs to have in roles and responsibilities and focus areas and there is just too much on the plate to do it well. And that’s just for me. You recognize that from the get-go,” Brown said, without acknowledging recent situations for Budenholzer, Stan Van Gundy and Tom Thibodeau that didn’t work out. “I don’t even reference other examples. I just know, for me. I came from Pop and R.C. and so, that’s a successful example. Although there are other examples that might not have worked, it had nothing to do either with the successful ones with Pop or even the ones that we know didn’t work recently. It had nothing to do with that.
“It’s just I know my capabilities and focus points and my level of interest. I have zero interest in that job. I want to coach basketball and I want help. It’s just the way I felt about it at the time and looking in the rearview mirror, nothing has changed,” Brown said. “(Elton) was always going to be a general manager and he was under our own roof and he played for me, had earned his stripes. And we felt incredibly comfortable with him. He’s loyal and his future, we all get. It was just a matter of when.”
The search was extensive, with Brown, Harris and partner David Blitzer interviewing 10 candidates from within the organization, veteran executives and those seeking the chance to finally run teams. Brand was involved in the process on both sides, asked to offer his assessment of the prospects.
Ultimately, Brand was eager to keep what Colangelo had built in place and maintain some continuity with the franchise’s direction. The 76ers had a solid team that had been setting the foundation for an expected jump in Alex Rucker, Ned Cohen and Marc Eversley. Brand went into his interview prepared with a PowerPoint presentation — “Kept it at 20 pages,” he said with a laugh — of his vision and won over the team’s brain trust.
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“Ownership was talking to me about who it could be. I’m like, if you could get him, I might lose my job, but yeah, he’d be good. So, I was honest and upfront,” Brand said, adding that the downside could also mean an overhaul. “If I don’t get it, who knows what happens to that group? If I can represent us, I need to step up and represent us.”
Harris expected some pushback on the decision, especially with an organization that desperately needed to get it right with this choice after previously overcoming a Hinkie regime that made the NBA change its lottery setup for fears that the game’s integrity was at stake. But overall, Harris anticipated a positive response to a player with previous ties to the organization who brought other intangibles to the table.
“Once we threw the process open, Elton became the obvious choice. In retrospect, maybe even the right choice from the very beginning,” Harris said. “He’s an All-Star, an old Sixer, 17-year player, has led locker rooms before, built relationships and in today’s NBA, that’s a critical skill of a GM. That, plus the fact that I had gotten to know him through his role in our front office, he’s a really high-quality person. Good person, good man. And smart. So all those things really came together and it was an easy choice.”
At 39, Brand is young enough that he can’t discount the need for a mathematical viewpoint in the game, but his experience as a former player gives him added perspective.
“To me, it’s really important. It makes my life a lot easier. When I see what the algorithms and our models bring up, it’s like, ‘OK,’” Brand said. “But I bring in the human side to it. Like, ‘He won’t fit into our locker room. He really can’t play defense at the level that that computer says he can.’ I watch the games, I know the game. Like, ‘Oh no, he’s going to get cooked.’ I bring the human side to that data, because it’s not a video game. Having a human element with the analytics, that’s one way to be successful.”
Rose said that in his front-office roles, he’s found that players often seek out his opinion on how to handle situations with coaches and within the locker room.
“Elton and myself or James, we’re still young enough that players remember us from our playing days. They remember who we are and what we did in game,” Rose said. “Players are guarded. Most athletes, and people in general, are guarded by nature and if you’re going to help these young guys and help them make changes to their game or their approach to their games or their routines, they have to trust you. They have to know that you have their best interest at heart, of you know what’s best for them. And having that former player background, kind of breaks down a lot of walls.”
Brand has to be motivator, ego-masseur and perspective provider, while being close enough to earn trust and distant enough to make the barriers evident. Butler credited Brand’s accomplishments as a player giving him immediate credibility whenever they have conversations about the game or life.
“That’s my guy, man. He makes it easier to come to him and talk to him, because he’s done this, at a high level, for so many years. It’s bigger than basketball and he realizes that, because he played the game,” Butler said. “And that playing the game aspect, and when you’ve got to travel, and you’re in hotel rooms, and you know that your body is aching, he can come in there and say, ‘You’re feeling it today? What is it, the knee? The ankle? He can see it without me having to really say it.
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“The thing I like about him the most is he’s always honest,” Butler continued. “You don’t have everybody in every organization that’s honest. If you’re doing good, he’s going to let you know. If you can do better, he’s going to let you know. I think that’s super important.”
After situations in Chicago and Minnesota soured, Butler came to Philadelphia with considerable baggage as a chemistry disrupter. His time with the 76ers can best be described as uneasily successful through the first two months. There have been those two game-winners in Charlotte and Brooklyn in his first seven games, but also questions about how his presence stands to stunt either Simmons or Embiid.
“With that team, the decisions that have to be made had to be bold. It’s interesting that it’s his first one but it’s also natural for him because he really knows the NBA,” Wilcox said. “He’s got 20 years of institutional knowledge. He’s super smart and no doubt he works at it. He ends up with a team that has great expectations and they have the pieces because of the job that Bryan and Sam did to load that asset pool up for somebody like Elton to take advantage of it.”
ESPN recently reported a heated film session in Portland with language and tone that might have crossed the line with Brown. Brown and Butler have both downplayed the incident but the reputation that Butler arrived with remains firmly intact. With Butler set to become a free agent next summer and Simmons eligible for a max extension as well, Brand will have to decide if it’s worth investing over a third of a billion dollars in pieces that might never properly come together.
Butler’s situation is challenging enough but Brand also has to contend with the peculiar and never-ending Markelle Fultz drama, involving a former No. 1 overall pick whose career has failed to launch by struggles that are either mental or physical, or possibly both. Fultz shut himself down for what his agent, Raymond Brothers, and the team later determined was a nerve problem that has caused his shot to disappear upon landing in the NBA.
The morning Brothers announced his plans for Fultz to sit until they figured out and fixed what ailed him — which occurred the night after Fultz lost his spot in the rotation to T.J. McConnell — Brand had to stand before cameras and an inquisitive media and awkwardly answer questions about a situation that has never not been baffling and won’t go away any time soon. Brand has worked feverishly to deflect the trade rumors that have inevitably followed. Fultz remains sidelined, with no immediate return projected, but Brand is letting everything play out before rushing to judgment.
“The whole Markelle thing, it’s almost unfair, because we’re waiting to see what’s going on with his health. All that other stuff, it’s not even fair,” Brand said.
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Brand resides over one of the best, most dysfunctional teams in the league, a squad that remains among the top in the East despite rarely existing in quiet. Brown likes to point out that the 76ers have the best record in the league since Dec. 25, 2017, but frustration of fans after every maddening win and occasionally head-scratching loss makes it hard to feel that way.
The 76ers didn’t plan to stop making moves once they acquired Butler and Brand is hardly satisfied. How could he be with the team going just 2-6 against Toronto, Milwaukee, Indiana and Boston, their primary competitors in the LeBron-less East? Veteran Corey Brewer was recently added on a 10-day contract but Brown has suggested that, while improvements from within are critical, Brand will need to address the team’s limited depth after losing starters Robert Covington and Dario Saric and backup guard Jerryd Bayless in the Butler deal.
“We still have work to do,” Brand said. “We have what it takes to do what we need to do. We’re winning. But this is real, I don’t what other teams do. We’re winning but we have a lot of room to grow. We’re winning but I’m not happy with the way we’re playing. We’re finding a way to win, but I’m nitpicking like we lost. Because we could’ve lost if Joel didn’t have a monster game or Jimmy didn’t hit a game-winner. But we have a lot of room.”
Though he’s mostly been hailed for showing the gumption to deal for Butler, whether it works out or not, Brand hasn’t come out unscathed. Covington expressed his disappointment to the Philadelphia Inquirer about finding out about the trade on social media before hearing from Brand. Before Covington’s criticisms, Brand explained the difficulty of moving to the management side and possibly having to deal a former teammate.
“That’s one of the toughest parts,” Brand said. “First of all, you have to do what’s best for the organization. There was a GM that told me, he was really friends with an All-Star level player, golfed with him, dinners, all that. He had a trade on the table for a better All-Star and he said, ‘I will drive him to California, myself, if I could get that guy.’ And that’s just what it is. And it makes a lot of sense, because it’s not like I banished them out of the league. You’re still in the NBA. You’re still hopefully going to have a great career but for this team, with my vision and what I see, that move had to be made.”
“I would tell them that this is a privileged world, like we know this isn’t real life,” Brand said. “So, if you have to go to another team … I get it. But we know what real-world problems are. It’s tough.”
This from a man who wouldn’t hesitate to deal himself, if he could.
(Photo Credit: Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images)