Brett Brown Ready to Start his Third Season with the Sixers

Will this season finally be the one where Sixers fans can expect to see more wins on the court?

"I don't think so," Brown admitted to me on the Sports Bash.

"I think when you look at what a lot critics say, we have a very young team, we have the youngest team in the history of the game, we have a younger team than we had last year.  I think we'll have continued improvement in a lot of areas, if might not reflect itself in a dramatic way, the way you'd want to see it - on the win side of things.

One of the interesting challenges this season will be to watch how Brown mixes and matches his two young big men; Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor, who have never played together before.  Brown noted that he is going to try to take Noel, who is a center and make him more of a power forward all while trying to teach Okafor the differences in the NBA game from the college game.

The 76ers have some major spacing issues and were dead last in spot-up shooting last year, to help improve in that area and open some space on-the-floor for the big men, the Sixers went out and acquired a shooter in Nik Stauskas from Sacramento this offseason, and Brown says he expect his to help the Sixers shooting issues.

"He was highly touted coming out of Michigan," explained Brown.  "He was a very high draft pick for a reason.  If we are anything, we are a program that develops, that creates opportunity, and I think the collusion of those two things give somebody a chance to jump into the NBA in a big way and grow their game."

"I'm looking forward to coaching him, he's a gym rat, there is a swagger side of his game that interest me and I'm looking forward to coaching him and bringing him into our program."

While it will be a tremendous challenge for Brown to incorporate Noel and Okafor together, one of the biggest hurdles will be to figure out who will bring the ball up and facilitate his two big men.

"It is," Brown admitted about the challenges of finding a point guard. "We have six point guards currently on the roster, I expect to keep three of those six."

Two of those point guards, Tony Wroten and Kendall Marshall will not be ready to start camp on Sept. 29 at Stockton according to Brown for physical reasons.  Marshall will be ready towards the end of the month, while Wroten might be ready closer to the start of November.

"Over the next month we hope to try to identify three (guards) and try to move that position forward."

Brown did admit that it was fair to say that he is counting on Marshall and Wroten to play a bulk of the minutes at the point guard position once they are healthy and ready to perform.

"They have more NBA experience," Brown said.  "It would probably make me pay more attention to them initially."

During Brown's first two season on the sideline, the Sixers have had a ton of roster turnover, last season along, the 76ers had 25 players get minutes last year with a whopping 19 different starters.  It's something Brown thinks is ready to change.

"There will be less movement with this year's roster than there has been in previous year's," Brown said.  "Having said that, there will always be a fluid side of the program where with the rebuild we are trying to find players ands create opportunities."

I feel like when I look at this year's roster, I think there will be more stability than there has been in my first two years.  I say that with a hint of trepidation, knowing the program is still fluid trying to build our young team."

The Sixers have 20 players in camp - they must weed that out and get to the NBA max of 15.

"We're ready to go, we have some good young prospects and we're excited to go to Stockton. I'm excited to let the city of Philadelphia see a better version of what we are trying to grown."