Report: Doug Collins wanted to sign Kwame Brown to a five-year, $30-million deal

Kwame Brown will return to the Sixers after averaging 1.9 points in 12.2 minutes over 22 games last season. (D. Clarke Evans/Getty Images)

As he made a push to be more involved with personnel decisions last summer, ex-Sixers head coach Doug Collins wanted to sign center Kwame Brown to a guaranteed five-year, $30-million contract, according a report by The Philadelphia Inquirer's John N. Mitchell that details the team's failings over the past year.

The team eventually signed Brown, who Collins coached during the two seasons after the Wizards made him the No. 1 pick in the 2001 draft, to a one-year, $3-million deal with a $3-million player option for 2013-14.

Brown exercised that option on Saturday. He played in just 22 games in his first year with the Sixers, averaging 1.9 points and 3.4 rebounds in 12.2 minutes per game.

The Sixers' biggest 2012 offseason acquisition, Lakers center Andrew Bynum, also flopped, as he missed the entire season with knee problems even after the Sixers medically cleared him with four doctors.

But one of those surgeons, who was said to have signed off on the deal prior to the April 14 home opener, told The Inquirer anonymously, "Who says I cleared him?"

Magic GM Rob Hennigan, who acquired promising young pieces from the Sixers in center Nikola Vucevic and wing Maurice Harkless while sending Dwight Howard to the Lakers, was skeptical that Bynum could ever be healthy enough to contribute, according to the report.

Bynum will become an unrestricted free agent on Monday and the Sixers are not expected to re-sign him.

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From the report:

None of the new players who sources said were brought here under Collins' direction produced in 2012-13. All the Sixers have to show for last year's offseason moves is the $12 million still owed to aging and injured (knee surgery) Jason Richardson over two years.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the situation corroborated an April 12 Inquirer story that reported that management wanted Collins, who had one year left on his contract at $4.5 million, gone.

"His three-year expiration date was up," a super agent said of Collins, fired after three seasons in previous stops in Chicago, Detroit, and Washington. "I think he is a big, noisy presence who ran the team off the rails."

None of the new players who sources said were brought here under Collins' direction produced in 2012-13. All the Sixers have to show for last year's offseason moves is the $12 million still owed to aging and injured (knee surgery) Jason Richardson over two years. Multiple sources with knowledge of the situation corroborated an April 12 Inquirer story that reported that management wanted Collins, who had one year left on his contract at $4.5 million, gone. "His three-year expiration date was up," a super agent said of Collins, fired after three seasons in previous stops in Chicago, Detroit, and Washington. "I think he is a big, noisy presence who ran the team off the rails."Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/sixers/20130630_The_76ers__What_went_wrong.html#g8tiDsBV1L0YXqL0.99