The Philadelphia 76ers are undergoing some serious changes to their rotation as they are moving Shake Milton into the starting lineup and having Ben Simmons move off the ball and take on more of a point forward role. That means a major change has to happen to accommodate the move.
That move is having 5-time All-Star Al Horford come off the bench and play with the second unit more often than not. That means no time paired with Joel Embiid in preparation for this restart for him, but the veteran is not concerned with any of that. This is strictly about the team itself being healthy and ready to go.
On top of that, he experienced this all in a matchup with the Los Angeles Clippers before so this is not new to him at all.
“No, it hasn’t just because, before the All-Star break, this has happened,” he explained. “So this is the way that coach wants to go about it and the biggest thing for us we’re all healthy now. We’re ready to go and teams are going to have to deal with our depth that we have.”
Another thing to consider is that just because Horford is not starting the game with Embiid, it does not mean that he won’t be paired up with him in games at some point. The Sixers paid him a hefty amount of money and that means he will get his time with Embiid and Simmons as well.
He and Brett Brown have not had that conversation yet, but he is smart enough to know and understand that this is the reality of it all right now.
“I haven’t, but the reality is that it’s going to happen,” he added. “I think we’ll be fine. I do understand the changes and things like that, but I don’t want people to make more of this than what it is. The reality is we’ll be fine and we’ll be playing together at times and at times we won’t. That’s just it.”
In terms of the Embiid and Horford pairing, it was not good on the offensive end this season. The two of them have an offensive rating of just 101.1 per Cleaning the Glass which is good for just the fifth percentile in the league. The plan is to eventually get things right on that end of these two.
“Really, that’s coach who has to figure things out in that way,” said Horford. “Now that the games mean more at this point and especially the playoffs coming in, the focus really shifts to defense and we have to make sure that we’re great defensively. The offense will come, we’ll figure that out, but defensively we have to make sure that we’re great and I believe that we will be.”
The Sixers play their first scrimmage game on Friday when they take on the Memphis Grizzlies. This will give Brown and the Sixers their first chance to really get a look at this new team and rotation. [lawrence-related id=35135,35126,35118]