August 20, 2016
Late Friday afternoon, ESPN’s Zach Lowe dropped an entertaining podcast that featured some news from Sixers coach Brett Brown. Brown was the interview guest in late August for a couple of reasons that have nothing at all to do with the Sixers:
1. For years in San Antonio, he coached Manu Ginobili (and was trying to coach him again this season), who retired from international basketball this week and was the subject of an incredible longform piece by Lowe last week.
2. He coached the Australian national basketball team, who had their incredible run in the Olympics come to a screeching halt at the hand of some feisty Serbs yesterday. At one point, Brown even admitted that he would’ve rooted for the Boomers in a gold medal game against the United States. Sad!
Those were the highlights of the interview, but there was some Sixers news at the very end. Lowe made it a point to avoid the Sixers, but he couldn’t resist asking about the Lord of the Workout Video, Joel Embiid. Here is a transcript of what they said:
Lowe: What’s the latest on Embiid? I’m tired of the workout videos. I don’t want to see any more workout videos where he’s beating up on like a 5’10” coach who's not touching him and he spins and dunks, like I'm tired of that. What is the latest, like when is he going to play real basketball?
Brown: I just left my third consecutive day workout with Joel a half an hour ago, 45 minutes ago, about 10 minutes before you and I got on the phone. And he is just so on track, like he’s on track in his head, he’s on track physically. I do hear what you say, like him dunking on a little workout coach ain’t getting it done anymore, I do agree with that. But I will tell you that behind closed doors, physically, mentally, recent scans, medically, everything is pointing in the right direction. And you know, we’re just very excited.
I think the thing I remind myself and mostly him is there really has to be a high degree of patience that he has first with himself. He really didn’t play basketball his junior year, he played 10 minutes his senior year in high school, he played 70 percent of his first college year, he was injured his first two NBA seasons. I mean just do the math, the timeline, the minutes on the basketball court, incredible. So you see all that, and we just have to be mindful of him, but he’s doing good, Zach. We’re all excited to see him play in an actual NBA game.
Lowe: Like is he on track to play in the preseason games?
Brown: Yes he is.
So, there you have it. As we learned this week, the Sixers’ preseason schedule starts on October 4th in Massachusetts and then two days after that back in South Philly.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
