With all sincerity, 76ers coach Brett Brown believes there’s a plan in Philadelphia and he believes the plan will come to fruition — eventually.

The questions diehards who remain in the City of Brotherly Love ask are 1) when exactly is eventually coming, and 2) is the home team close to respectability? Right now those answers are “who knows?” and “no”.

Continue reading below

While the organization acknowledged it held Noel back though he was healthy the final month of the season, there are no limitations this season. But Noel won’t have a veteran group of teammates to help in his transition.

The 76ers are painfully young. Hinkie has pieced together a lineup of young journeymen, NBA hopefuls, and a couple of retreads for Brown, who enjoyed great success as an assistant with the San Antonio Spurs for 12 years.

“It is frustrating at times,” he said. “We won 50 games every single one of my years in San Antonio. All 12 of them. The motivation I have is I see a big, bright light at the end of all of this. I see daylight. I see Embiid getting healthy. I see some more draft picks coming. I see Nerlens getting older. I see an abundance of money, flexibility to look at free agents. I see daylight.

“For me, it’s about putting the building blocks culturally in place. We have to get our culture right so that when we get these pieces, the foundation is strong enough to grow them.”

The 76ers have one player over 30 years old — past-his-prime shooting guard Jason Richardson — and the rest of the roster is made up of players just trying to make an NBA roster.

Carter-Williams is the lone draft pick before 2014 who remains with the team. Thaddeus Young, Evan Turner, Nikola Vucevic, Maurice Harkless, Lavoy Allen, Jrue Holiday, and Marreese Speights have all been traded.

The 76ers are trying to build an identity but are dealing with perceptions that by the time they become competitive, Philadelphia will be a low-priority destination for free agents.

“Who’s playing hard? Apples and apples, which apple is playing hard?” Brown said of the culture. “It’s really sort of that juvenile in regards to how you say it. There’s a certain type of species that we’re trying to grow and find in a really difficult sporting city like Philadelphia. We’ve got to find people who can live in a city and gain respect in a city by competing.”

Building primarily through the draft without major free agent acquisitions has had mixed success over the years.

The Oklahoma City Thunder are constructed of mostly homegrown players but they have yet to win a championship.

The Sacramento Kings tried adding lottery picks to more lottery picks but that has failed miserably.

Eventually, the 76ers will need to add through free agency. They are banking that Noel, Embiid, and Carter-Williams turn into All-Star-caliber players, but the 76ers are becoming increasingly insignificant in a market that demands winners.

“I feel that trying to coach myself with a very, very long lens is important,” Brown said. “I see daylight in this program. Michael’s 3-point shot, Nerlens’s progression at the foul line, Tony Wroten’s assist-to-turnover ratio, all those types of things are development things that are our measurements this year. That’s our report card and it’s done with a very long lens.”

Brown has had to turn himself into a cheerleader, life coach, mentor, and guide for his young players and he remains brimming with optimism.

“I get excited to think that Dario Saric and Joel Embiid aren’t that far away,” he said. “We have flexibility with cap space. Michael was the Rookie of the Year. Nerlens is coming around. I see daylight. We just have to navigate through this period where the culture, the behavior, the defensive rules are in place. That’s all I do every day to remind myself of that, and try to coach that and fight for the things we need to have when those guys start to become better players and are available.”

Persevering and turning losing expectations into a winning culture is an arduous job. The 76ers lost 26 straight games last season, and there’s an increasing number of detractors calling Hinkie delusional because of his unorthodox tactics.

“It is a tremendous challenge but that’s what I signed up for,” Brown said. “Trying to keep a locker room together. Trying to be candid with a city and the media and trying to do a good job and fight for the things I know you have to do to build a program. That’s coaching the Philadelphia 76ers.

“I understand how some people may question it. We’ve gone about trying to assess how do we have our best chance to be annually competitive and annually special — where you can at some point be among the elite. And we’ve chosen a path. It doesn’t ensure that we’re right. But I think it does ensure in our eyes that it does give us the best chance. How others view it, that’s fair enough.

“But we’re quite comfortable from ownership to general manager to coach to people that are involved in those decisions that there is a very singular focus that we are on the same page and have a pretty clear, transparent path.”

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

League in for a battle over new TV money

The NBA gladly agreed to a new television contract with Disney and Turner Sports, boosting the league’s Basketball Related Income by a cool $24 billion. That’s the good news.

The not-so-good news is the National Basketball Players Association is very aware of the windfall and is almost certain to opt out of the collective bargaining agreement in 2017. In 2011, several owners of smaller-market teams cried poverty, and they created a faction that was determined to curtail the players’ growing salaries, even if it meant canceling the 2011-12 season, which almost happened.

With the Los Angeles Clippers selling for $2 billion and quickly purchased by Steve Ballmer, and the downtrodden Milwaukee Bucks fetching $550 million, the players took notice of the soaring value of NBA franchises. And now add the TV deal to the equation and we could be heading for another labor war.

NBPA executive director Michele Roberts has remained reticent since taking over her post on Sept. 15, but she released a telling statement last week in reaction to the TV agreement.

“The new television and media deals are good news for all of the stakeholders in the business of the NBA,” she said. “Although we have seen strong revenue growth and significant increases in franchise values over the past three years, it is clear that the league is now entering a period of unprecedented revenue growth.

“Our job will be to ensure that the players receive their fair share of the results of their efforts and that we do everything possible to maintain the growth and popularity of the game.”

In other words, the players are going to get their fair share of compensation and the league should prepare to include the players in their profits. Commissioner Adam Silver has gained popularity with the players with his handling of the Donald Sterling issue, but they are understandably skeptical of the league after the 2011 lockout forced them to give up 7 percent of BRI.

“This is the fourth season under the collective bargaining agreement and what you’re referencing is there is the opportunity for the teams or the players to opt out after Year 6,” Silver said last week in Berlin. “So we’ll see in essence how this agreement ultimately operates. It was designed to take into account new business opportunities. In fact, the goal of this collective bargaining agreement was for the teams and the players to work together to grow the so-called pie. That’s what we’re seeing right now and experiencing. So from our standpoint we’re seeing this collective bargaining agreement operate and operate successfully.

“On the other hand, this new television money from the new US deals does not kick in for two more seasons until the 2016-17 season, so I think it’s premature to make any declarations about the operation of this agreement. We will continue to study it. I’m sure they are already beginning to study what this new television money will mean to them, but I will say as the agreement is currently structured they will receive 51 percent of this new money off the top. It goes directly to the players and gets divided up among them and that’s the way our system works.”

Meanwhile, the league is also trying to address its stance on domestic violence proactively. Charlotte guard Jeff Taylor was banned from all team activities while awaiting his trial on a domestic assault charge in East Lansing, Mich. With Roberts now in office, Silver said the league and NBPA can move forward on more initiatives to educate players.

“Of course, we took note of what transpired with the NFL players and events around that this summer and as a result of that we are redoubling our efforts,” Silver said. “As I said before, we are taking a fresh look at many of our programs involving domestic violence. I think there is no question there are lessons to be learned from the experience the NFL is going through. It’s something that we’re constantly studying and doing the best we can to try to avoid future incidents.”

And finally, during his European tours, Silver is always asked about NBA expansion to Europe. The issue is, while several cities desire an NBA team, they lack the suitable arenas the league desires.

“Part of that vision requires facilities, and we have now, of course, a state of the art facility in London where we have experimented with regular-season games,” he said. “We have this arena here; the Bercy Arena in Paris is in the process of being renovated. I was in Spain only a few weeks ago for the World Cup of Basketball and had conversations with organizations in Barcelona and Madrid about plans for future arenas. So I’ll say, we’ll see, we have no immediate plans to expand at the moment but we’re watching the world economies, the ongoing growth in our sport, and it’s our hope one day we will . . . expand to Europe.”

SECONDARY INCOME

Bender feels players can add to their wallets

Jonathan Bender, a former NBA player who has turned into a financial wizard through various investments, had some strong suggestions about how current players could earn more money off the court without relying on their salaries or labor negotiations with owners.

“They have so much marketing power right now, especially with social media, that they should create a product,” he said. “I’m not talking about a hat or T-shirt. I’m talking about a product that doesn’t get old, that doesn’t have a shelf life. Maybe a consumable or something that helps people. You can get a scientist to create something that helps people. I don’t care if it’s bubble gum, manufacture it yourself and sell it.”

Bender said current players are only taking advantage of a fraction of their true marketability because of their reluctance to explore their own products, such as shoes, clothing, or health-related aids.

“Every time you look around you see a guy modeling a product or you see a product that’s got a guy’s face on it, I just count the money, I count how these guys are getting cheated,” Bender said. “I don’t care what kind of check that they’re paying them, you’re still getting cheated at the end of the day.”

How are they being cheated?

“You can just look at the fact of what let’s say Michael Jordan makes and what Nike makes off of [his shoes, products]. You look at what Kevin Durant just signed for [with Nike] and for us [as players] you look at it like, ‘Man, that’s a no-brainer, I’ll take it.’ But if you get into the manufacturing numbers and the marketing numbers as far as his reach through social media, and you look how long it will take the company to make the return on him, and it’s crazy. They’ll probably make that money back the first year.”

Layups

Instead of trying to make the Memphis Grizzlies’ roster, former second overall pick Michael Beasley left the club to sign with the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association. Beasley has had a disappointing NBA career to say the least, but perhaps putting up some numbers in China will boost his chances at a guaranteed contract. Time in China may also help mature Beasley, whose lack of focus has been an issue for years. China has become a haven for discarded NBA players looking to cash in and enjoy a new culture. Former Celtic Jordan Crawford, ex-Wizard and Net Andray Blatche, ex-Celtic Lester Hudson, former Clipper B.J. Mullens, and former Knick Toney Douglas are among those who signed with Chinese teams this summer . . . The Celtics have 16 guaranteed contracts — if you include the partially guaranteed deal of Dwight Powell — and 15 roster spots, meaning they are going to have to eat a contract before the opener. There are murmurs that the move will involve Vitor Faverani, who has yet to even practice during training camp because of soreness in his surgically repaired left knee. Faverani is owed $2.09 million this season and was expected to garner minutes at center, but a car accident in Spain that reportedly led to his arrest and a knee that is still not healed after surgery seven months later may lead to his departure. Powell, meanwhile, has impressed his teammates with his versatility and work ethic, and it may be difficult for the Celtics to pass on a player with such potential . . . One player looking for a bounce-back season is Amar’e Stoudemire of the Knicks, who scored 6 points in 14 minutes in New York’s loss to the Celtics in the preseason opener. Stoudemire is in the final year of a mammoth five-year, $100 million deal he signed to become one of the franchise saviors, although knee injuries robbed him of that opportunity. Still, Stoudemire is trying to prove he can return to his previous form, which was All-Star caliber. Against the Celtics he looked more active, running the floor with ease and jumping to block shots. Stoudemire was able to play in 65 games last season, with 21 starts, but he averaged a career-low 11.9 points per game. He turns 32 in November and could get another free agent contract by putting together a productive season.

Gary Washburn can be reached at gwashburn@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter@GwashburnGlobe. Material from interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.