Part of Allen Iverson’s lore was that he never had a great teammate.
“How in the hell can I make my teammates better by practicing?” is an often-overlooked line in the practice rant.
After the Sixers passed on Paul Pierce in the 1998 draft, they typically surrounded The Answer with a fading big name like Toni Kukoc, Dikembe Mutombo, or Chris Webber. Iverson was probably right, no amount of practice was fixing that lacking supporting cast.
Unsurprisingly, the team never got over the hump with AI. Eventually, the 76ers traded him. The team toiled in mediocrity for a decade before The Process started.
Billy King arrived in Philadelphia as the vice president of basketball administration in 1997, a year after Iverson was drafted, and was promoted to general manager in 1998. King failed to find the answer to support Iverson.
Now, about 25 years later, he works for a hiring firm and helped the Flyers fill their president of hockey operations position. Given his history, it was unsurprising he failed to find the proper support for Danny Briere.
As you know by now, the Flyers removed the interim tag from Briere, who is now the general manager, and named Keith Jones the president of hockey operations this morning.
Undoubtedly, both hires lack experience. They might also be unqualified.
Briere, a former Flyer, has quickly ascended the ranks in the team’s organization. After retiring from the game following the 2014-15 season, Briere entered management. He oversaw the ECHL’s Maine Mariners starting in 2017 and was named a special assistant to general manager Chuck Fletcher in 2021-22. He took over as interim GM when Fletcher was fired this season.
While the Montreal Canadiens considered hiring Briere in the same capacity last year and the Flyers have touted the work Briere has done on the business side, including a two-year management program at Penn, his NHL front-office experience has been limited to an assistant role in what appeared to be a bumbling operation prior to Fletcher’s firing in March.
This is compounded by the Jones hire. Jones, who played his final game in 2000, is another former Flyer but is better known for broadcasting. Like King, he’s been a regular on the WIP Morning Show and has done color and studio work the NBC Sports, NBC Sports Philly, and TNT since 2005. Somehow, in more than 15 years, I can’t remember a single thing he’s said on a broadcast. More importantly, the Flyers appointed a president with less front-office experience than their green general manager.
Briere gets credit for working himself into a strong candidate for this role. Jones, as far as we know, has never done anything that would quality him to oversee an entire hockey operation from either a roster development or business perspective.
This is a huge bet on Briere to learn the ropes as a general manager without an experienced sounding board. Maybe running the draft and contract/trade negotiations won’t prove to have much of a learning curve, but this is an unnecessary risk and immense pressure to run an organized operation without the assistance of anyone who has.
Briere may turn out to be great, but he has no experience that would lead one to expect that. He’s worked for a bad team for about a year. This would require faith in an organization that has proven untrustworthy, relying on their insistence that Briere is truly a unique executive in the making rather than seeing him contribute to any tangible results.
There’s reason to be skeptical. This is also an organization that continues to hire former players or executives with close connections to the alumni. It’s also one that has failed to produce consistent success since the salary cap was implemented almost 20 years ago. Sure, the 70s and 80s Flyers we came to decry after the trade deadline may have lost influence, but are we just replacing their influence with artifacts from more recent history? Wouldn’t this “new era of orange” be better served with the tint of another organization’s colors, given this one’s ongoing lack of success? Are we just repeating our past mistakes?
I’m curious if Jones was the first choice. Briere’s promotion has been considered fair accompli since he took over as interim GM. While it appeared the Flyers had an opportunity to cast a wide net to find a perfect complement for Briere only to lack the creativity to look outside their own building (which includes a TV, as Eddie Olczyk was apparently the other top candidate), would an experienced executive – think Doug Wilson or even Ray Shero – want to oversee this organization? They already found their coach last year. Now they have a GM. This would be an arranged marriage for any outside candidate. Filling the roles of this structure was a backwards process, bottom to top. Given where we are, the team prioritized Briere as the general manager over finding the most qualified president. This is a huge gamble given Briere’s lack of experience.
Speaking of process, tonight the Sixers can take one step closer to their first NBA Finals since 2001. King had a big part in that drought. Hopefully his impact on the Flyers isn’t as damning.
