After arduous Process, Philadelphia 76ers owners building for 'sustainable excellence'

Jeff Zillgitt | USA TODAY

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NEW YORK – The office of Apollo Global Management – where Philadelphia Sixers billionaire owner Josh Harris is co-founder and senior managing director -- has one of the best views in Manhattan.

It’s an expansive and mesmerizing panoramic, sweeping from the Hudson river to the upper west side, across Central Park to the upper east side to the East River.

The view is also a metaphor for his big-picture approach to owning the Sixers. Harris and billionaire co-owner David Blitzer, who is the senior managing director and head of tactical opportunities at investment firm Blackstone, want to win a championship as quickly as possible but they’re not going to cut corners and sacrifice long-term strategies.

Harris and Blitzer, who met in Penn’s Wharton School of Business, formed Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment. They own the Sixers, New Jersey Devils, Crystal Palace F.C. of the English Premier League and e-sports franchise Team Dignitas, among other properties.

In a rare interview, Harris and Blitzer met with USA TODAY Sports Friday at Harris’ office the day before the Sixers’ home playoff opener to discuss the Sixers, the lessons learned in owning a team, their vision, The Process and former general Sam Hinkie’s part in building what the Sixers have now. Sixers CEO Scott O'Neil was also present.

(Editor's note: The following has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity)

What does this season mean for the city?

Josh Harris: I have a big smile on my face. We’ve all put a lot of time and hard work into this – the fans, ownership, management, front office, the players. We’ve all worked really hard, and it’s been a long grind. But seeing that we’re making improvements or being successful. It just creates a big smile on my face. I’m really happy for the city, the fans, the players and for everyone involved really.

David Blitzer: Obviously, it’s been a tremendous amount of enjoyment for us and even more broadly in terms of our partners. But what’s most pleasing to me is what we’re able to deliver to our fans and to our players. They love playing together. They enjoy what they’re doing. For them to be able to start off fine and really gel as the season has moved on and to do what they’re certainly doing over the last six weeks is just stunning.

JH: We’ve said all along we want to build an elite team and we want to stand for excellence. That’s what we stand for in other parts of our lives. There are no shortcuts. One of the things you figure out is that it takes a long time to build a team and organization that has sustainable excellence. This season has been a signal that we’re on our way there.

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What do you enjoy about going to Sixers games?

JH: There’s a community feeling in Philly in terms of you have some of the smartest – very aggressive obviously – sports fans around, and they care, and I care. So, I enjoy that feeling of rooting for the same outcome and being together in terms of trying to help the team be as successful as possible. I enjoy spending time with the players and coaches and the business people as well and the things that happen around the game.

What do you like about each portion of what the basketball side of the operation has done?

JH: Obviously, starting with Brett (Brown), he’s the soul and the heart of our team – the values that he brings in terms of transparency and hard work and development and the way he handles the media and players. Truthfully, now some of his on-court tactics. That was a real test for him. He’s brought tremendous value and we think very highly of him.

Bryan has added a lot of pieces. He’s the right person for the job we have right now in terms of both building a great staff around him and being very consensus oriented and getting a lot of people involved as well as adding on the court – (Marco) Belinelli, (Ersan) Ilyasova, Amir Johnson. J.J. Redick. He’s added a lot of value to that.

The environment in the arena is electrifying. We’ve been sold out since the beginning of the season. That obviously matters to the players and the fans. It all comes together.

David and I have a partnership – we have some other people as well (in ownership) – everyone’s been a part of the same thing.

DB: The only thing I would add and Scott hears me say this all the time. We have very high bars as you could imagine. What Josh does in his day job and what I do in my day job is basically backing tremendously talented people to drive the businesses forward. Given that bar across the organization – the sporting side and the business side – we have top-class talent everywhere.

What are the lessons you’ve learned from owning an NBA team?

JH: The lesson is patience. The similarities to what we do in our day jobs in private equity and investing in companies, you have to have an incredible franchise which we think we have. The Sixers are a storied franchise. Then you put the best people in the key positions and then you hold them accountable and support them. ... Everything plays out in the press. In the companies we own, no one cares about the price of polypropylene. Everyone cares about the starting lineup. In many cases, there can be a lot of short-term orientations in making decisions which might impact the short run quickly but might not necessarily be the right thing to do for the long run. Being able to stay the course and keep to your ideals and keep your eye on the goal, which in our case is to be elite, that’s the biggest lesson for me.

How did you get through the difficult seasons earlier in your ownership?

DB: The reality was when we invested in the team we had a view that there were no shortcuts. You can listen to Josh in fall of 2011 talking about creating a sustainable and excellent business on and off the court. We knew there weren’t shortcuts. That said, sports are different and we came in a shortened (lockout) season. We were just trying to learn in a lot of ways in the beginning. If you really go back, you can see what the team performed at in 2011-12. If you remember the dynamics of the playoffs with Derrick Rose getting hurt and suddenly we’re in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals with Boston and winner of that game going to play Miami.

We also realized that summer that that was not the team that when you’re thinking about the long term, (it) wasn’t quite there. We then made a trade for Andrew Bynum having played 79 of 82 games the prior year (and) never played in a game (for the Sixers). That obviously set the organization back quite dramatically. We just buckled up and said we’ve been consistent that we want to create a sustainable organization. We want to make great decisions for the long term rather than the short term. That’s how we saw it through.

Did you trust the process?

JH: There are three ways to build a winner. It comes down to players. Having the best players, front office and coaching staff, you’re going to win. You can build through the draft, build through free agency or make trades. Building through trades and free agency comes down to being opportunistic. Generally, those are more difficult ways to build.

Really, it’s a big advantage to have a good core. So, when we found ourselves after the 12-13 season, we made a decision to build over the long run and build through the draft. That just takes longer and is more arduous. Having said that, we felt very strongly if we made smart decisions that eventually we would build something we and the city of Philadelphia could be proud of. That vision and that commitment helped see us through. We tried to communicate that as best we could. By and large, the city of Philadelphia was quite supportive of what we were doing for the most part.

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DB: We were just very consistent, and we did not want to veer off path because of a bad article on X, Y, Z game. We wanted to build something sustainable across that organization and that just takes time. It’s hard in the public eye, back to difference between this business and many other businesses. That is very hard to do.

JH: When things don’t go exactly right or go wrong, there’s a lot of scrutiny publicly. There’s incentives for actions. Change this, change that. A lot of times I find these strategies take a long time to play out. The immediate gratification doesn’t necessarily occur. You need commitment to your people, to the organization, to your players and not make decisions in that moment because it’s easier to allay criticism. Make decisions that you think are right.

DB: Making poor decisions on players can last a very long time. If you make a real mistake on a five-year deal. It’s not like, ‘I made a mistake. Let me go fix that.’ The cap system can be punitive.

Where does former GM Sam Hinkie get credit in all of this?

JH: Sam is a smart guy. He’s a great strategist, and he certainly positioned the team, as best he could, to achieve success through the rebuild process. He also brought in some good people who are still with us. We continue to have a good relationship with him. We’re glad he was a part of it.

Bryan is the right guy for the mission we have right now which is not rebuilding but building to an elite status. We’re now at a point where we’re attracting free agents. We’re now at the point where we have a different situation than we did when Sam was here. We have a great core and now it’s going to be about adding pieces that create balance and create a certain type of playing style. Bryan is great at that. It’s also about continuing to push the envelope in the front office in terms of innovation around sports science and analytics and attracting a team that can work together and deliver and keep raising the bar against 29 competitive other teams.

Have you drawn hard lines on the luxury tax?

JH: We want to bring a championship to Philly. In order to do that, you need great players. That’s what you need. If great players come along and we have to go into the luxury tax, we’ll go into the luxury tax. There’s no issue with it. Going into the luxury tax for players who aren’t great, that’s how you get yourself in trouble.

Do you have timeline to win that championship? Is the timeline accelerated now based on what you’ve accomplished this season?

JH: I would say we’re always in a hurry. People’s life circumstances change, but David and I have no interest in ever selling the team. We have a longer time in one sense. But in terms of actually winning a championship, we want to do it as fast as possible. We’re obviously in a hurry, and but we’re not going to make decisions that sacrifice the long-term strategies. That’s the balance. We’re in a hurry. We’re willing to spend the money if the right players come up. We’re also willing to be patient and continue to build brick by brick if we have to with our eye on being an elite team that’s consistently trying to compete for an NBA championship.

DB: The only thing I would add is the unpredictable nature of this. You could have this wonderful plan laid out that says you’re going to win between X, Y and Z games. We’ve had tons of models on all sorts of things. Then you actually face the reality of competing in an incredible league where things happen. We’re good at reacting to what’s happening and obviously we’re super pleased with the way this team has come together. Did we expect Joel to go down on a freak accident? You just can’t predict these things.

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