In a complete outside of the box move, the Philadelphia 76ers hired Elton Brand to be their next general manager on Tuesday.
Philadelphia has hired Elton Brand as general manager, league sources tell ESPN. Brand will be elevated from VP of Basketball Operations. He made strong impression on ownership and Brett Brown in process, beating out several inside and outside candidates.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 18, 2018
The hiring process was a long one. The reaction of the people on Twitter shows that this was a move that essentially nobody saw coming.
Elton Brand??
— Jack Fritz (@JackFritzWIP) September 18, 2018
Elton Brand pic.twitter.com/kOr20cxbcY
— zain (@chewhaqqa) September 18, 2018
https://twitter.com/SpikeEskin/status/1042183852326825985
Elton Brand was on the roster like 2 years ago playing 15 minutes a game ?
— drew (@Dcorrigan50) September 18, 2018
Best thing about Elton Brand as GM is he can have a uniform on under his suit incase we need a backup big
— drew (@Dcorrigan50) September 18, 2018
Nothing about this process has made any sense.
How do you go from trying to nab Daryl Morey to hiring Elton Brand in the span of a few months?
— Joe Giglio (@JoeGiglioSports) September 18, 2018
Sixers went from saying they wanted someone who was a GM before to hiring a guy with a single year of experience in any front office position at all
— Michael Levin (@Michael_Levin) September 18, 2018
Hoping Brand is good at this very difficult gig and really like him from what I know, but this process was a mess and a direct reflection of this clownshoe ownership group
— Jimmy (@_JimmyMcCormick) September 18, 2018
Though, some people were willing to take some positives from this.
I bet Elton Brand won’t trade himself for a high schooler.
— Tom Fornelli (@TomFornelli) September 18, 2018
There’s always that.
Brand is completely unproven as an NBA executive. He might be great, but he might be terrible. If he falls into the latter category, NBA Twitter will be more entertaining than usual.