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Remember that Sixers general manager position currently occupied by head coach Brett Brown on an interim basis? The highly discussed vacancy that’s been available for months? Well, management has apparently decided September is the perfect time to give it their full attention. With outside candidates being interviewed this week for the role, reports are that the people currently in the building will sit down for the job next week.
The 76ers plan to interview internal front-office executives — former NBA All-Star Elton Brand, Ned Cohen, Marc Eversley and Alex Rucker — next week for general manager search, league sources said. Team is interviewing outside candidates this week.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 6, 2018
Your guess is as good as mine as to why these interviews couldn’t have been conducted earlier in the summer. Less than two weeks ago, this group of current Sixers front office executives were all given promotions. Surely, they could have been interviewed then and all organizational changes could have been announced at once, rather than this piecemeal system management has opted to go with this offseason.
Philly.com’s Keith Pompey also reported that Denver GM Arturas Karnisovas was scheduled to interview this week, but ultimately turned down the opportunity. It’s another instance of Sixers management targeting a current general manager to come aboard, after their reported inquiry into Houston’s Daryl Morey. Karnisovas was promoted internally by Denver last summer, after he was a final candidate for the Bucks job. These pitches must really be something: “Hey, come to Philadelphia and do the same job you’re doing now, only you’ll have less say in who you can hire and reduced authority on final personnel decisions. Should we ready an office for you?”
It was apparently a similar story in regard to former Cavaliers general manager David Griffin, who Pompey reported was interviewed earlier this summer.
The #Sixers interviewed former #Cavs GM David Griffin for the vacant GM job this summer, but felt he wasn’t a good fit for their front-office structure, according to an #NBA source. They want to make collaborative decisions instead of a GM who will have the final say. pic.twitter.com/xEXRGLMiTj
— Keith Pompey (@PompeyOnSixers) September 6, 2018
Sixers management is more concerned with collaboration than an EDM DJ. How dare someone want to have final say in the decisions that will be linked to his career resume forever! I also find it interesting that the Griffin interview would finally be revealed mere hours before the Eagles were set to unveil their Super Bowl banner. It’s about as transparent as someone in a cartoon yelling, “Look, a distraction!”
Everything Philadelphia has done this summer points to an internal promotion. Management leaked their reported interest in big names, without offering a role enticing enough for someone to leave his already plum gig. They waited until September to bring in a few hot names on the market among the presumed next generation. Then, they’ll finish with the in-house guys. On the surface, management has covered all their bases. I’ll wait to reserve final judgment, but it really seems like they tried to reverse engineer the situation to justify what they wanted to do all along.