It was a road trip out west in late December, just after Christmas. The Sixers had played one game in Portland and were getting set to face Utah the next night. Before that game, coach Brett Brown revealed that Joel Embiid, who had made every road trip up to that point, was sent back to Philadelphia.

The coach excused it with some sort of explanation, but the reasoning was loud and clear - the team wasn't happy with his work ethic.

Yesterday, during his final meeting with the media following his second season at the helm, Brown said he understands what happened with Embiid this season and reiterated that he looks forward to coaching his twin tower combination of Embiid and Nerlens Noel.

"There were times that I wasn't happy," Brown said of Embiid's workout habits. "If you can't coach your best players - I call it buying time and dying - you have nothing. I think that my experience in my first year with Joel - and I tell my guys that they want me to coach them - you want to show up on time, you want to do the right thing, we want to act the right way.

"And like all young players, Nerlens was no different [in his first year with the team] and other young players are the same; you go through heartache and you go through things that you have to stand up and say, 'That's not part of our culture.'