The Sixers may have more connections with Melbourne United, who they’ll play in their first preseason game Friday night, than any other basketball team in the world.
It’s not just head coach Brett Brown’s years as a coach in Australia, which he calls “a second home,” or Ben Simmons being born in Melbourne, or one of Brown’s players from his first year as coach of the Sixers, Casper Ware, now being Melbourne United’s star point guard (see story). The number of links between the teams defies coincidence.
Let’s start with Brown: At 25 years old, he realized he wasn’t happy with his job at AT&T. Sure, he was making good money, but it wasn’t what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He decided to travel across the world.
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“Truth be told, it was at a stage in my personal life where I had no idea what I wanted to do,” Brown said Thursday. “I had made some money, I was single, and I traveled by myself. Just sort of backpacked on the South Pacific. Ended up meeting my wife on the Great Barrier Reef.”
Brown started his professional coaching career in Australia, as an assistant with the Melbourne Tigers (now Melbourne United) in 1988. He ended up spending 17 years in the country, serving as head coach of the Australian national team from 2009 to 2012.
“Everything just sort of slowly fell into place and you blink, and you live 17 years there,” Brown said. “It went by quick, and I say that as a compliment. It’s really tremendous people and a tremendous country.”
In his early coaching years, Brown also coached junior basketball, winning an Australian Under-20 national title. His starting point guard was 16-year-old Dean Vickerman, now Melbourne United’s head coach. His starting two-guard was Simon Mitchell, now a Melbourne assistant.
Vickerman remembers Brown had an unorthodox style of coaching.
“He was someone to me that changed player development,” Vickerman said after Melbourne United’s practice Wednesday at Temple University. “He just did it differently than other people. … He wrapped my hands up in gardening gloves and we did ball-handling drills, and then pulled the gardening gloves off, just to get a different feel for the basketball.
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“He was always looking for different ways to evolve as a coach and try different things, and I loved all the things that he brought. He gave you just a great confidence. He’d make you work hard but when it was game time, just a great confidence to go out and do what you do well.”
Vickerman later played for Brown with the Melbourne Tigers, alongside Dave Simmons, Ben’s father. Simmons was a dominant center for Melbourne, known for his otherworldly strength.
“His strength was ridiculous, and I think Ben is really starting to build his strength as well,” Vickerman said. “Dave was a guy where you’d foul him and he could just lift you off the ground he was so strong, if you tried to chop down on his arms. I think Ben will really grow into it, a little bit more of the man strength that Dave certainly had.”
Ben was born in Melbourne in 1996, just like his teammate Jonah Bolden. Oh, and by the way, Jonah’s dad, Bruce, played 17 years in the NBL, often matching up with Dave Simmons.
Jonah still frequently returns to Melbourne and he worked on his game with Melbourne United in August.
“We loved having him at practice,” Vickerman said. “He just showed some areas that he’s absolutely elite. His length, and his ability to shoot the basketball, and to up-fake and put it in on the floor, and his length defensively … I think there’s still a lot of improvement there for Jonah, but he’s certainly going to be a good NBA player.”
Brown invited Vickerman and his staff out to dinner Thursday night. For both head coaches, and for Ben and Dave Simmons, and Jonah and Bruce Bolden, Friday’s contest means so much more than a typical preseason game.
“To play this game here in Philadelphia with Ben Simmons as my starting point guard and Jonah, to look down the sidelines and see two of my former players, and then have the history that I personally have had with the Australian culture, spending 17 years of my life there, it’s quite an unusual circumstance to have this type of opportunity,” Brown said.