When the 76ers’ plane touched down in Phoenix on Christmas evening, there was no warm, refreshing desert air awaiting a team that had flown twenty-three hundred miles westward to continue its six-game road trip. Instead, temperatures were in the low 50’s, about 10 degrees cooler than normal for this time of year in the Valley of the Sun (even cooler than the conditions in Philadelphia when the club left five hours earlier). Upon reaching their hotel, however, the Sixers were most definitely greeted by a radiant presence. As the club’s buses pulled in, there was Mike D’Antoni, standing in the lobby, looking energized, excited, and eager to take on his new assignment as Brett Brown’s Associate Head Coach. He shook hands and spoke with several members of the traveling party, about 12 hours before starting his first official day in the position he was hired for on December 18th. “I’m just happy to be here” said D’Antoni following Saturday’s shoot-around at Talking Stick Resort Arena. “The biggest factor why I’m here, Brett is a great guy. After a while, you just want to be around good people, and they’re good people. And from all I’ve heard, the players are buying in and good guys, and as a coach, that’s all you want.”A three-time NBA head coach, D’Antoni called Talking Stick Resort Arena home from 2004 through 2008, when he led the Phoenix Suns to back-to-back Western Conference Finals appearances, and four consecutive playoff berths overall. Following that stint, he went to the New York Knicks. His most recent head coaching opportunity was with the Los Angeles Lakers from 2012 through 2014.”I think as a coach, you always do it,” D’Antoni said, admitting he never let his mind stray too far from the profession. “I’m home just watching teams, and you go back and forth and look to see what people are doing. So you’re always in it, you’re never out of it. But, to be able to now talk to players, and coaches, that’s the fun part of coaching. When you have receptive groups, as coaches, as players, that really makes it fun. This is kind of what we coaches live for. It’s heaven-sent for me. I’m happy as heck.” D’Antoni called Saturday’s practice a “great” experience, and is ready to “help when I can.” Brown believes the 2005 NBA Coach of the Year recipient will prove to be a beneficial resource, especially with veteran point guard Ish Smith now back with the organization. “We want to play with great pace,” said Brown, whose Sixers rank ninth in the NBA with an average of 99.5 possessions per 48 minutes. “I challenge our guys every time I see them, you’ll be in the best shape of your lives, and the reward is, you’re going to run. How cool is it to bring in Mike D’Antoni into that thing anyways, and for me to have a hybrid of Spurs world and old Suns world, and try to find how it meshes. From a basketball enthusiast standpoint, I love it. So that was great. To introduce to the group you’ve got a new point guard. That was great. So we look at this middle-third of the year, we truly, it’s not words, we feel like we’re zero and zero with a new light, and we’re just moving forward, trying a find a way to get better and find some wins.”Smith, who didn’t participate in Saturday’s shoot-around, but could be available to play later in the day versus the Suns, was acquired via trade with the New Orleans on Christmas Eve. Power forward Nerlens Noel praised the move, and, even after spending only a few hours with D’Antoni, picked up on the impact of his addition as well. “You saw him just installing one set, just fixing a little thing up,” said Noel, discussing his impressions of D’Antoni from Saturday’s shoot-around. “You see his expertise in the offense, pick-and-roll basketball, you already see some things that he can help us with. We feel good. We’re in our second-third, as coach likes to call it, the second-third of the season. We’re going to try bring this second-third in with better defense, bring our sting back, being able to get up and down the court with some pace, and play high-level basketball.”Jerry Colangelo, named the Sixers’ Chairman of Basketball Operations on December 7th, was in attendance Saturday morning, along with President of Basketball Operations and General Manager Sam Hinkie. Brown asked Colangelo, who is based in Phoenix, to speak to the team before it hit the floor for its work-out session.
The Sixers tip-off against the Suns, which Colangelo ran from its inception in 1968 through 2012, at 9:00 PM EST on Saturday.
