The Philadelphia 76ers were eliminated from the second round of the playoffs for the second straight year on Sunday night following a Game 7 loss to the Toronto Raptors, and now, an offseason of uncertainty begins.
Will Jimmy Butler be back? Will Tobias Harris return? Will the 76ers trade Ben Simmons?
But the biggest question after Philadelphia lost Game 7 was what the Sixers would do with Brett Brown, who was rumored to be on the chopping block if the 76ers lost.
Well, Philly did lose Game 7, but, cooler heads prevailed, and the 76ers opted to keep Brown.
That was clearly the right decision.
How anyone can place the majority of the blame on Brown's shoulders for the 76ers' lack of playoff success is mind boggling to me, and it also seems to be mind boggling to the Sixers' players themselves, as many of them have come out to defend Brown.
Let's examine this roster for a second.
Sure, you have quite a bit of talent in the former of Joel Embiid, Simmons, Butler and Harris, but outside of those four, the 76ers don't have much else other than J.J. Redick.
They don't have any floor spacing. They don't have any depth. They don't have any scorers off the bench. They don't have any point guard defenders. Their backup big men are unplayable in most situations.
Just what about this 76ers roster even strikes a resemblance to a legitimate title contender?
Realistically, a second-round fate was awaiting Philadelphia all along. We saw plenty of problems during its first-round series against the Brooklyn Nets, and those problems remained true against the Raptors.
And the thing is, those issues have nothing to do with Brett Brown.
They have to do with poor roster construction and somehow thinking that a team severely lacking perimeter shooting and depth could compete for a championship in the modern era.
In a league where space and pace reigns supreme, you absolutely have to have at least four shooters on the floor at all times, and I'm not sure Philadelphia ever had that at any one point this season.
Let's also remember that the Sixers struck out miserably in free agency last summer and lost key pieces such as Marco Belinelli and Ersan Ilyasova, sharpshooters who played a significant role in the team's surprising success a year ago.
The 76ers came into the season with a worse roster than they had last spring when they were eliminated by the Boston Celtics in five games, and they thought that would suffice.
Of course, Philadelphia did go out and make two major in-season trades, landing Butler and Harris, but the fact that the Sixers actually went into the season with that roster and expected to contend just shows how out of touch the front office is.
They then failed to acquire any perimeter shooters to supplement Embiid and the starters at the deadline, instead picking guys like James Ennis and Jonathon Simmons off the scrap heap.
Depth matters a lot in the NBA playoffs. Heck, just look at Toronto on Sunday night. Yes, Kawhi Leonard's 41 points were the biggest reason for the Raptors' victory, but just where would Toronto have been without Serge Ibaka's 17 points and eight rebounds off the bench?
Meanwhile, who could the 76ers have relied on for bench production? Ennis? Mike Scott? Boban Marjanovic?
If Philly's starters didn't play well, the Sixers weren't winning. It was that simple.
The 76ers' problems go beyond depth, too. Maturity is also a major issue, which was blatantly obvious in the first round when Embiid and Simmons thought it would be a good idea to laugh about Embiid's vicious elbow to the head of Nets big man Jarrett Allen.
Or how about early on in the Raptors series, when Simmons elbowed Kyle Lowry in the groin? Or when Embiid showboated up and down the court in Game 3 as if the Sixers had just advanced to the finals?
At their core, the 76ers are an immature group that needs to grow up, and perhaps this humbling seven-game loss will help them do that, as Embiid, for what was probably the first time in his career, took responsibility after the loss. He didn't say he was tired. He didn't blame the refs like he has done in the past. He actually said to put the loss on him, which could be a major step in the right direction.
Basically, Brett Brown did what he could with this group. He mustered whatever rotations were possible and did everything he could to ensure that the 76ers were in a position to beat a team that was clearly superior to them.
If anything, Philadelphia should be thrilled with the job that Brown has done, as I am honestly shocked that that series went as far as it did.
I'm not saying Brett Brown is Gregg Popovich, but he does not deserve to be scapegoated on a team whose real problems go far deeper than coaching.
Thankfully, it seems that Elton Brand and Co. may have realized that.
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