Thoughts on Bob Myers, Elton Brand & The Sixers' GM Situation
Spike is troubled by being back here again.
I had one primary thought after listening to Josh Harris and Bob Myers blather on for an hour yesterday…
“Ah, so are we doing this again?”
Yes there were the normal lies (Josh Harris on the luxury tax), avoiding answers that committed to anything, talk of how badly everyone wants to win, but that wasn’t really what I took away from everything.
My big question is this – Is Bob Myers shadow running everything or is he up there trying to make Josh Harris think he’s going to shadow run it so he gets to keep his job doing very little and getting paid a lot?
For all of the criticisms lobbed at the Harris/Bltizer era, the one that is most troubling and harmful is their inability to commit and stick to an organized leadership structure for any reasonable amount of time.
Since purchasing the Sixers in 2011, we’ve had the following clusterfucks: when Doug Collins, Rod Thorn, Tony DiLeo and Adam Aron all thought they ran the team. When Sam Hinkie ran the team but Scott O’Neil thought he ran the team. There was very little confusion when Colangelo was here, he was a disaster all on his own. Then, instead of actually choosing a leader, when Elton Brand was named GM, it was actually them not able to choose any of the internal candidates, so letting them all run the team while Brand was the face of it.
Almost every person in the front office during the Brand era had a direct line to Harris, but the most destructive of which was Colangelo right-hand-man Alex Rucker, who when he wasn’t trying to manipulate fan sentiment by emailing bloggers and podcasters and high-ranking social influencers, was doing the same with Harris. Then, the Sixers allowed Brand to rid the front office of those folks to put him really in charge, for a couple of weeks before they hired Doc Rivers and gave him some say in personnel. Then they hired Daryl Morey with Doc Rivers already in place.
So that brings us to today and Bob Myers. Myers certainly made it a point to sound like he would be part of the day to day operations with the Sixers. This is for one of two reasons.
1. He’s actually going to be part of this, without question shrinking the pool of candidates who are going to have their names attached to the success or failure of the next few years. There are definitely fewer people who will want the job if they think that Myers is the guy really doing the job. This already coming from probably a smaller pool due to the challenging circumstances and the fact that this person cannot hire their own head coach, at least for the first year.
2. Josh Harris, who previously tried to hire Myers away from the Warriors, asked Myers to do it. Myers doesn’t want to do it because his current job pays more money, is less work, and is more in line with what he wants to do in the future. However, Myers wants to keep this cushy job where he has one or two main projects a year along with answering a couple of Harris calls a week. So he tells Harris, “don’t worry, I’ll keep a close eye on it,” and was putting on show during the press conference.
Neither one of these options are good, and both of them are pretty in line with the bullshit we’ve seen over the years.
This isn’t a condemnation of Myers’ ability to do the job if that was what happened. He’s got his hits and misses just like everyone in those positions does. You can find people who think he was carried in his time with the Warriors, and people who rightly point to the fact that they won four titles while he was in charge (that’s the only argument I need Shawn!). I don’t really have an opinion on Bob Myers, only that if he’s the one doing the job he should just do the job.
Finally a related note on Elton Brand. There seems to be a group of vocal people (perhaps just a small group, I don’t know), who are insistent that Brand also be let go. I think there are some misperceptions about Brand.
First, you simply cannot hold the things you hold against him, against him in the way that you do. The internal dynamics of when he was “in charge” were untenable, and it was more like a GM by committee (with the aforementioned Rucker) really doing things. That’s no way to run a team. Brand was certainly green and probably had the position early, but it just was not him going around making those calls.
Since then, Brand has been an asset and it’s almost impossible to find someone who has worked with him or around him to say a bad word about him. He’s well thought of and had a ton of opportunities to work elsewhere that he has passed up to stay with the Sixers. I am not saying he should get Morey’s job, but I am saying that the Sixers are probably better off overall if he stays. They’re certainly not worse off.
At the very least, when someone like Morey is let go, it’s rare that his entire staff is let go before a new hire is made. As Myers mentioned, the Sixers still have to run a team between now and when the new person is hired, with the draft right around the corner. If they were to move on from Brand, it would be almost assured this would happen after the new person is hired.
Team Ricky
Our Daryl Is Gone pod.
The Statman reminds us that we should have all seen this coming from a mile away.
AU is still delusional.
My (non basketball related) Daryl Morey farewell.
Team Non-Ricky
This one is dedicated to Sixers Adam, who had the scoop and story of the off-season so far.
