PHILADELPHIA _ I spent the past week wondering what Brett Brown was thinking about his two enigmatic All-Stars, Goofball and Gun-Shy. The ones who won't do what they should. The ones who can't win playing the way they're playing.
If my job was at stake coming out of the break, with the trade deadline passed and 27 games to play, what strategy would I use to maximize the effectiveness of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons? How would I give the Sixers the best chance to reach the Eastern Conference Finals?
I'd treat them like children, not employees.
Often, the healthiest and most productive parenting methods involve letting your most precious assets mature at their own rate. This is true with children, and with ballers. Ben and Joel, with so much left to learn and with so little inclination to learn it, qualify as both.
If I were Brown, I'd accept my world for what it is.
I'd ignore Embiid's shortcomings _ he's an out-of-shape bully, a taunter and instigator who still gets flummoxed by double teams, with a limited repertoire of post moves and a diminishing inclination to use them. He isn't going to get any leaner, or any smarter, or any more polished in the next two months, so why fret?
I'd recognize that Simmons is too ashamed of his shooting form _ and the attention it attracts on social media _ to shoot the perimeter shots that will help my team. I'd recognize, and empathize with, the humiliation he must feel when he's showered with patronizing cheers after he shoots a 3-pointer, like some 7-year-old brave enough to chuck the training wheels off his bike. Simmons isn't going to shed his psychological shackles over the last few weeks of the season.
These issues should be resolved, I know. And I hear this a lot: Why not bench them? Why not teach them a lesson?
Because this isn't Hickory, Ind., in 1951, and these aren't high school kids, and Brett Brown's word is not Hoosier law. It's 2020. Players have run the NBA for 25 years. On the best teams, coaches and players form partnerships.
