T.J. DiLeo learns ‘every day is something new’ as Sixers’ summer league head coach, an ethos that lines up with his basketball life

LAS VEGAS — T.J. DiLeo spent the 2020-21 season in Germany, where he was permitted to travel only between a 6,000-seat arena and his apartment because of COVID-19 protocols.

He was playing in “ghost games” with no fans for Telekom Baskets Bonn, the first-division professional team in the city along the Rhine River. His then-girlfriend was not permitted to obtain a tourist visa to visit, because they were not yet married.

“Oh, wow, I might be done,” DiLeo thought to himself.

Fast forward about four years, and DiLeo has been roaming the sideline at UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center wearing 76ers gear during the last week. DiLeo, the son of former Sixers executive and coach Tony DiLeo and a former Temple guard, worked his way up from player-development intern to summer league head coach.

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And like the players who occupy these NBA-adjacent courts in July, DiLeo is an example of how this stretch of the offseason presents opportunities for young coaches to step into heightened roles.

“There’s something new coming every day,” DiLeo told The Inquirer at practice in Las Vegas last week. “Every day.”

Such as the logistics of scheduling every aspect of a training camp and practice days in Philly, Salt Lake City, and Las Vegas. And answering media questions about the injury status of VJ Edgecombe, the prized third-overall draft pick who missed four games with a sprained thumb. And implementing a philosophy predicated on playing fast, prompting DiLeo to scream, “[expletive] run!” from the sideline during the Sixers’ loss to the San Antonio Spurs last week.

Having a hand in so many decisions is new even for DiLeo, the 35-year-old who grew up around the Sixers and sits on the cusp of the team’s final game in Las Vegas on Friday against the Brooklyn Nets.

Tony remembers a 5-year-old T.J. drawing up plays and then telling Dad to use them with the Sixers, he said in a telephone conversation earlier this week. His mother, Anna, recently shared a photo of T.J., his brother, Max (who is still playing overseas), and his best friend on the court before Michael Jordan’s final NBA game, played at the then-First Union Center in 2003.

T.J. regularly attended Sixers practices to observe Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown and learn skills from then-assistant Quin Snyder, who is now the head coach of the Atlanta Hawks. Tony once needed to break up a 45-minute conversation between a college-age T.J. and former standout point guard Andre Miller, because the Sixers needed to begin practice.

And while DiLeo sat on the end of the bench during a game as a Temple redshirt, a television crew put a camera in a confused T.J.’s face while fans rumbled around him.

“Finally, our team nurse came behind me,” T.J. recalled, “and said, ‘They just made your dad interim coach.’ And I’m like, ‘Ohhhh.’”

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DiLeo has always been a point guard, fulfilling the coach-on-the-floor archetype while “thinking the game,” Tony said. T.J. was coached at Temple by the legendary Fran Dunphy, who T.J. said emphasized the foundational principles of discipline, toughness, and valuing every possession. Playing overseas exposed him to new tactical perspectives, such as “really reading the game,” and motivational styles.

DiLeo became a two-time Basketball Bundesliga All-Star, and Tony said that T.J. had an offer to join Bayern Munich of the Euroleague for the 2021-22 season. But when that “I might be done” feeling first gnawed at T.J., he reached out to Dunphy to ask him to keep an eye out for any possible coaching opportunities. Turns out, then-Sixers coach Doc Rivers was looking for recently retired players who could still physically compete during practices and workouts for a player-development intern spot.

“It would mostly just be guarding at the beginning,” T.J. said.

Now, DiLeo spearheads daily individual skill workouts, navigating the routine (and player emotions) baked into the season’s grind. Nick Nurse retained DiLeo during the 2023 coaching change and has added to his responsibilities. DiLeo has helped assistant coaches with scouting reports, and run on-court group sessions in Philly and during Rico Hines’ well-known pickup games in Los Angeles.

Most recently, DiLeo was tasked with rapidly getting Quentin Grimes and Jared Butler up to speed after they were traded to the Sixers at the February deadline.

“[Nurse has] given me opportunity and a voice to grow as a coach,” he said. “I really learned a lot from him, and he just holds everybody to a standard of, ‘You’re going to get better. You’re going to improve.’

“It’s really, really helped me. The more I got into it, the more I’m doing, the more I started to enjoy everything.”

DiLeo told Nurse toward the end of the regular season that he was interested in being the summer league team’s head coach. He needed to quickly mesh a roster of young returners, new draft picks, and others hoping to audition for the Sixers and NBA at large.

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He thought about advice from his father and Nurse that, whenever he demonstrates a new drill or installs a new play, he had better have an answer to any possible question a player could ask. He now recognizes that teaching requires more than telling players once, but helping them understand “the value of what we’re trying to do” during their relatively short stint together.

He must be in lockstep with the front office, which wants to see certain players in certain roles during games, and Nurse, who wants him to run the Sixers’ concepts but has given DiLeo some freedom to experiment with his own ideas.

His primary goal: ensuring that the Summer Sixers play hard, because that is a non-negotiable for NBA role players. That is why a 41-point loss to the Spurs last Thursday was hard to stomach, even in this exhibition environment, and led to a demanding practice the following day.

“He was tough on us,” said guard Judah Mintz, who played for the Delaware Blue Coats last season. “At the same time, he encourages us. He doesn’t let us get down. He’s always speaking life into everybody.”

These days, T.J. and Tony can talk basketball strategy, because the Sixers teams Tony coached also aimed to play fast. Tony reminded T.J. to “coach your personality,” because “you can’t be something you’re not. Players will pick up on that.” But since summer league began, Tony has mostly taken a backseat and watched on television as a father, which he calls “nerve-racking.”

“You’re hoping every shot goes in,” Tony said. “You’re hoping they’re stopping the team every time. You’re hoping they get out on the fastbreak and get some easy baskets. The problem is you have no control over it.”

Yet when the television camera panned to T.J. during a down-to-the-wire game against the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday, Tony was proud of how “under control” his son looked.

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T.J. needed to execute substitutions to assure that certain players received minutes. And manage summer league’s unique timeout rules, causing him to relay instructions from the sideline more than in huddles. He credited his assistants with “telling me every possible scenario that could happen in the next 30 seconds.”

And like DiLeo’s entire summer league experience in this heightened role, he reiterated after that game that “every day is something new.”

“It’s been really cool seeing the full picture of everything that you need to think about,” DiLeo said, “at such a small scale, compared to what it is during the season for Coach Nurse.”