The Philadelphia 76ers are officially settling into Orlando as they prepare for the resumption of the 2019-20 season. They have been practicing for a few days now and as the season gets set to resume, it appears that the team is going to have a much different look than the one they had back in March.
The Sixers have used a jumbo lineup all season led by Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Al Horford. However, due to the lack of spacing that those lineups create, the team is considering a few changes and it appears that coach Brett Brown is inserting Shake Milton into the starting point guard spot.
“He’s been amazing, he’s been the starting point guard,” Embiid said of Milton on Monday. “I think he has a huge opportunity to help us accomplish what we believe we can. He’s been doing an amazing job of just running the team.”
Over the final 20 games heading into the league suspension, Milton shot 51.2% from deep on 4.2 attempts per game. It is unrealistic to believe that he will be shooting at that number again, but if he can shoot it around 40% from deep or so, it would really help the Sixers on offense.
“We going to need him to knock down the open shots, which he did,” Embiid added. “Before the league got shut down, he was on a roll so we’re going to need him to keep it going, but he’s been great.”
Now, what about Simmons? He has been the team’s point for almost three seasons now. Brown has been speaking a lot lately on wanting to move Simmons off the ball and Embiid believes that he can flourish in a new role of being the point forward on the team.
“I think it’s going to be great. Since I’ve been here, I feel like we’ve had a great partnership and we’re going to get better. This move is actually going to be even better than being the starting point guard because he’s so great defensively and offensively when he has a chance he’s probably the fastest guy in the league, so just get the rebound and pushing it in transition to find shooters and then in half-court play, we can use him in a lot of ways. Pick-and-roll, I think we’re going to be great.”
Joel Embiid on Ben Simmons’ role at the power forward spot #Sixers pic.twitter.com/yv3v2XGSeN
— Ky Carlin (@Ky_Carlin) July 13, 2020
The Sixers will continue to work out this new look that they have going on and they will be able to test it for the first time on July 24 in their first scrimmage game against the Memphis Grizzlies. This will give Brown, Milton, and Simmons time for everything to work out the kinks before the seeding games begin on August 1. [lawrence-related id=34553,34545,34386]