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Meet Connor Johnson, the Sixers’ summer-league coach with NBA dreams

Johnson just finished his first season coaching the Blue Coats.

Connor Johnson will coach the Sixers' summer-league team.
Connor Johnson will coach the Sixers' summer-league team.Read moreMICHAEL BRYANT / Staff Photographer

Ask any one of the 76ers’ summer-league players or anyone on the Delaware Blue Coats roster about Connor Johnson and there’s a phrase that continues to come up.

Tough love.

“He’s a good coach. He gets on me at times,” Zhaire Smith. “It’s tough love. I like playing for coach Connor. He always pushes me. If I’m [not going all-out], he’s going to let me know.”

Johnson didn’t always have that reputation. He says his coaching style has taken huge leaps since he assumed the role of Blue Coats head coach in June 2018.

“Where I’ve grown the most is with the players," he said. “Talking to them each day, relating basketball to their life and their career and where those things merge. Coaching is about command and gaining the players’ respect, and then it’s basketball and the X’s and O’s.”

Johnson will be coaching the Sixers’ summer-league team for the first time when it opens its four-game slate in Las Vegas on Friday. He is trying to strike a balance between developing the players in the gym and letting them know he cares.

After two years as a Villanova graduate assistant, Johnson spent four years on Brett Brown’s staff, first as a video coordinator and then as a player development coach. He says that everything he does is almost a carbon copy of what he saw Brown do.

“He kind of walks the fine line of ‘You’ve got to be on them’ and ‘You’ve got to be tough,’ and then, ‘You’ve got to find plenty of opportunities to love them up,’ ” Johnson said of Brown.

Whatever Johnson is doing seems to be working. His philosophy resonates with his players and the Sixers are giving him more opportunities.

“Elton Brand and coach Brown have given me a lot of responsibility with the G League, and they’ve put a lot of resources into it, and that makes me think I’m doing the right thing, and then summer league is kind of an extension of that," Johnson said this week.

Johnson’s goal is to be an NBA coach, and more than ever he sees a clear path ahead.

Johnson has watched Kevin Young take a similar path. He began as a G League assistant and moved up to head coach of the Sixers’ affiliate. Now, he’s one of Brown’s lead assistant coaches. Johnson calls Young a mentor and is trying to follow his example.

“He was a G League head coach ... now he runs the entire Sixers offense,” Johnson said. “Every progression he’s made is something that, if I could just follow, I would feel lucky.”

That’s not to say that the road is a smooth one.

The goals for Johnson’s summer-league and Blue Coats teams are the same: to develop the right habits and skills that make it easy for the Sixers to call up a player should the need arise.

With the development being the highest priority, sometimes winning can take a hit.

“While we would like to compete and win a championship in the summer league, our real goals are that these guys come out, get confidence, and get a base, a foundation that translates later," Johnson said.

Johnson is seeing the rewards of sticking to the plan, especially this week. Shake Milton signed a four-year deal after spending last year on a two-way contract, and Norvel Pelle picked up a two-way contract after spending last season with the Blue Coats. Johnson knows the success of players he coaches is what NBA teams will look for when evaluating him.

Johnson knows the NBA isn’t so far away. He has the challenge of making sure his players know that, too.

“I think a lot of guys come down and think it’s a huge step below the NBA, and that’s not true,” he said. “Everyone here is on the fringe of making it. The guys that get in it and really respect their time there get better. It’s a tough thing sometimes.”

That’s where the tough love comes in. His players have don’t have storied NBA resumes. Everyone has something to prove, and Johnson is there to remind them of it.

“He creates a competitive atmosphere,” Milton said. “Sometimes you butt heads because you want to win whatever drill is happening and he’s going to have some type of punishment. For me, it raised the stakes to another level. At the end of the day, he makes it fun for you and he really cares for you.”