The Philadelphia 76ers made a trade on Thursday morning acquiring two scoring wings in Glenn Robinson III and Alec Burks from the Golden State Warriors and on Sunday, the two players were finally in uniform.
While toiling for a bad Warriors team, Burks is excited to have the opportunity to play for a contender like the Sixers. His scoring and shooting can help this team in an area they really need it the most.
“I didn’t believe it when I found out,” said a laughing Burks. “My initial reaction was that the 76ers were a great team out of the East and they had two players I get to play with, the superstars I get to play with.”
While Robinson III was able to play and make an impact in a 118-111 win over the Chicago Bulls, Burks had a chance to sit on the bench and observe some things. His role will most likely be much different than Robinson III’s and he will have to sit and watch a bit to really understand what coach Brett Brown wants out of him.
“From afar, it starts with the two superstars, Ben (Simmons) and the big man (Joel Embiid). They control the game,” said Burks. “They’ve got a lot of great role players that I didn’t know and now I know a little bit about from them playing and being around them for a couple of hours. We’ll see how this plays out for the rest of the season.”
It is not clear to Burks what his role is, but there is time to figure that out. The team has one more game on Tuesday against the Los Angeles Clippers at home before the All-Star break. So while the role is not clear just yet, all of that will be figured out soon enough.
“I don’t know, actually,” he said. “I guess we’ll figure it out soon. I know they wanted me here and they think I fit well so we’ll just see how it plays out.”
Burks also gave some insight into why he did not play on Sunday.
“I’ve been all over the place,” he explained. “That’s why I didn’t play tonight. I was on a red-eye last night and I got in real early so we came to an agreement that I didn’t have to play tonight just with the traveling. We didn’t want anything to happen.”
The Sixers will have some work to do to add Burks to the rotation as well as Robinson III on a consistent basis so now is the time to get to work and figure out what that rotation will look like. The All-Star break will also offer the team some time to really settle on some things. [lawrence-related id=25393,25383,25375]