The Philadelphia 76ers are an American professional basketball team based in Philadelphia,. They are a member of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Formerly known as the Syracuse Nationals, the 76ers joined the NBA when it was founded in 1949. The Nationals had a record of 51–13 in their first NBA season under coach Al Cervi and won the Eastern Division crown. The franchise were purchased by Philadelphian Irv Kosloff and Ike Richma in the spring of 1963; the NBA approved their franchise shift on May 22 and name change to the Philadelphia 76ers on August 6. This brought professional basketball back to the city, which had been without a team since the Golden State Warriors left Philadelphia in 1962. [1] [2] After coaching the 76ers since 2010, Doug Collins resigned as head coach on April 18, 2013 following the 2012–13 season. [3] Brett Brown was hired to be the head coach of the 76ers on August 15, 2013 prior to the start of the 2013–14 season. [4] Brown was released as head coach after a 4–0 loss to the Celtics in the 2020 playoffs. On October 3, 2020 Doc Rivers was announced as his replacement. [5]
There have been 24 head coaches for the Philadelphia 76ers franchise. The franchise won their first NBA championship as the Syracuse Nationals in the 1955 NBA Finals under coach Cervi. Their second title was won as the Philadelphia 76ers in 1967, coached by Alex Hannum, who has the highest career winning percentage for the 76ers. [6] [7] Billy Cunningham, who played and coached with the 76ers for 17 years, is the franchise's all-time leader in both regular season and playoff games coached and wins. [8] [9] He coached the team to their most recent title in 1983. [6] [8]
Hannum, Jack Ramsay, and Larry Brown are the only members of the franchise to have been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as coaches. [7] [10] [11] Cervi, Paul Seymour, and Kevin Loughery served as a player-coaches, and Cervi, after retiring as a player, continued to coach the team for the rest of the season that he retired during and five additional seasons. [12] [13] [14] Six other former players, Hannum, Dolph Schayes, Cunningham, Matt Guokas, Fred Carter, and Maurice Cheeks went on to coach for the franchise. [7] [8] [15] [16] [17] [18]
GC | Games coached |
W | Wins |
L | Losses |
Win% | Winning percentage |
# | Number of coaches [a] |
* | Spent entire NBA head coaching career with the Nationals/76ers |
† | Elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach |
Note: Statistics are correct through the end of the 2022–23 season. The list does not include NBL seasons.
# | Name | Term [b] | GC | W | L | Win% | GC | W | L | Win% | Achievements | Reference | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Regular season | Playoffs | ||||||||||||||
Syracuse Nationals | |||||||||||||||
1 | Al Cervi ^ [c] | 1949–1953 (as player-coach) 1953–1956 | 495 | 294 | 201 | .594 | 60 | 34 | 26 | .567 | 1 championship (1955) | [12] [19] | |||
2 | Paul Seymour [d] | 1956–1960 (as player-coach) | 279 | 155 | 124 | .556 | 20 | 9 | 11 | .450 | [13] [20] | ||||
3 | Alex Hannum † | 1960–1963 | 239 | 127 | 112 | .531 | 18 | 8 | 10 | .444 | [7] | ||||
Philadelphia 76ers | |||||||||||||||
4 | Dolph Schayes [e] | 1963–1964 (as player-coach) 1964–1966 | 240 | 129 | 111 | .538 | 21 | 9 | 12 | .429 | 1965–66 NBA Coach of the Year [21] | [16] [22] | |||
— | Alex Hannum † | 1966–1968 | 163 | 130 | 33 | .798 | 28 | 18 | 10 | .643 | 1 championship (1967) | [7] | |||
5 | Jack Ramsay † | 1968–1972 | 328 | 174 | 154 | .530 | 17 | 5 | 12 | .294 | One of the top 10 coaches in NBA history [23] | [10] | |||
6 | Roy Rubin * | 1972–1973 | 51 | 4 | 47 | .078 | — | — | — | — | [24] | ||||
7 | Kevin Loughery [f] | 1973 (as player-coach) | 31 | 5 | 26 | .161 | — | — | — | — | [14] [25] | ||||
8 | Gene Shue | 1973–1977 | 334 | 157 | 177 | .470 | 22 | 11 | 11 | .500 | [26] | ||||
9 | Billy Cunningham * | 1977–1985 | 650 | 454 | 196 | .698 | 105 | 66 | 39 | .629 | 1 championship (1983) | [8] | |||
10 | Matt Guokas | 1985–1988 | 207 | 119 | 88 | .575 | 17 | 8 | 9 | .471 | [17] | ||||
11 | Jim Lynam | 1988–1992 | 367 | 194 | 173 | .529 | 21 | 8 | 13 | .381 | [27] | ||||
12 | Doug Moe | 1992–1993 | 56 | 19 | 37 | .339 | — | — | — | — | [28] | ||||
13 | Fred Carter * | 1993–1994 | 108 | 32 | 76 | .296 | — | — | — | — | [18] | ||||
14 | John Lucas | 1994–1996 | 164 | 42 | 122 | .256 | — | — | — | — | [29] | ||||
15 | Johnny Davis | 1996–1997 | 82 | 22 | 60 | .268 | — | — | — | — | [30] | ||||
16 | Larry Brown † | 1997–2003 | 460 | 255 | 205 | .554 | 58 | 28 | 30 | .483 | 2000–01 NBA Coach of the Year [21] | [11] | |||
17 | Randy Ayers | 2003–2004 | 52 | 21 | 31 | .404 | — | — | — | — | [31] | ||||
18 | Chris Ford | 2004 | 30 | 12 | 18 | .400 | — | — | — | — | [32] | ||||
19 | Jim O'Brien | 2004–2005 | 82 | 43 | 39 | .524 | 5 | 1 | 4 | .200 | [33] | ||||
20 | Maurice Cheeks | 2005–2008 | 269 | 122 | 146 | .455 | 6 | 2 | 4 | .333 | [15] | ||||
21 | Tony DiLeo | 2008–2009 | 59 | 32 | 27 | .542 | 6 | 2 | 4 | .333 | [34] | ||||
22 | Eddie Jordan | 2009–2010 | 82 | 27 | 55 | .329 | — | — | — | — | [35] | ||||
23 | Doug Collins | 2010–2013 | 230 | 110 | 120 | .478 | 18 | 8 | 10 | .444 | [36] | ||||
24 | Brett Brown * | 2013–2020 | 565 | 221 | 344 | .391 | 26 | 12 | 14 | .462 | [37] | ||||
25 | Doc Rivers | 2020–2023 | 236 | 154 | 82 | .653 | 35 | 20 | 15 | .571 | [38] | ||||
26 | Nick Nurse | 2023–present | — | — | — | – | — | — | — | – | [39] |
The Philadelphia 76ers, also known as the 76ers and colloquially as the Sixers, are an American professional basketball team based in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The 76ers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home games at the Wells Fargo Center located in the South Philadelphia Sports Complex. Founded in 1946 and originally known as the Syracuse Nationals, they are one of the oldest franchises in the NBA and one of only eight of the 23 to survive the league's first decade. The team is owned and managed by Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment (HBSE), with founders Josh Harris and David Blitzer acquiring the team in 2011.
Adolph Schayes was an American professional basketball player and coach in the National Basketball Association (NBA). A top scorer and rebounder, he was a 12-time NBA All-Star and a 12-time All-NBA selection. Schayes won an NBA championship with the Syracuse Nationals in 1955. He was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History, and was also named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1973.
Paul Douglas Collins is an American basketball executive, former player, coach and television analyst in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played in the NBA from 1973 to 1981 for the Philadelphia 76ers, earning four NBA All-Star selections. He then became an NBA coach in 1986, and had stints coaching the Chicago Bulls, Detroit Pistons, Washington Wizards and Philadelphia 76ers. Collins also served as an analyst for various NBA-related broadcast shows. He is a recipient of the Curt Gowdy Media Award.
Alexander Murray Hannum was a professional basketball player and coach. Hannum coached two National Basketball Association (NBA) teams and one American Basketball Association (ABA) team to league championships. He had a combined NBA-ABA record of 649–564 (.535) in the regular season and 61–46 (.570) in the playoffs over 16 seasons. In 1998, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach.
Fredrick James Carter, nicknamed "Mad Dog" or "Doggy", is an American former professional basketball player and coach, who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for eight seasons (1969–77) for the Baltimore Bullets, Philadelphia 76ers, and Milwaukee Bucks.
Kevin Michael Loughery is an American former professional basketball player and coach.
The 1966–67 NBA season was the 21st season of the National Basketball Association. The season ended with the Philadelphia 76ers winning the NBA Championship, beating the San Francisco Warriors 4 games to 2 in the NBA Finals, ending the Boston Celtics' record title run at 8.
The 1967 NBA World Championship Series was the championship series of the 1966–67 National Basketball Association (NBA) season, and it was the conclusion of the 1967 NBA Playoffs. The best-of-seven series was played between the Western Division champion San Francisco Warriors and the Eastern Division champion Philadelphia 76ers. This was the first championship series in 11 years without the Boston Celtics, who were defeated in the Division Finals by Philadelphia, the first time since 1958 and the only time in the 1960s that the Boston Celtics did not win the NBA Finals. It matched two teams who had each relocated in the decade, as the Warriors had moved from Philadelphia to San Francisco in 1962 and the 76ers had been relocated from Syracuse, New York to replace the void left by the Warriors. Wilt Chamberlain had been the star of the Warriors since joining the team in 1959 but was traded to the 76ers in the middle of the 1965 season.
The 1966–67 season of the Philadelphia 76ers was their 14th season in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and their 4th since moving from Syracuse.
The 1970 NBA expansion draft was the fifth expansion draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on May 11, 1970, so that the newly founded Buffalo Braves, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Portland Trail Blazers could acquire players for the 1970–71 season. Buffalo, Cleveland, and Portland were awarded the expansion teams on February 6, 1970. Houston was also awarded a franchise, but the group backing the team was unable to come up with the US$750,000 down payment on the US$3.7 million entrance fee that was required before the 1970 NBA draft. The Braves later underwent two relocations, moving to San Diego in 1978 and changing their name from the Braves to the Clippers, and then relocating to Los Angeles in 1984. They are currently known as the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Philadelphia 76ers are an American basketball team currently playing in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The 76ers are third in NBA history in wins and playoff appearances.
This page details the all-time statistics, records, and other achievements pertaining to the Philadelphia 76ers.