In case you have been living under a rock, the Philadelphia 76ers are back. Yes, the NBA is getting set to resume the 2019-20 season inside the bubble in Orlando and the Sixers play a game on Friday to begin their scrimmage schedule.
So, what’s the plan for minutes? These guys have not played a competitive basketball game since March 11 when they beat the Detroit Pistons at home. So coach Brett Brown has to decide what to do to rev up guys like Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid before the regular season resumes on August 1.
“I’m not going to play our heavyweights any extended minutes in our exhibition games,” Brown explained. “The first exhibition game is only four 10 minute periods, the other two will be normal games. I expect you’ll see somewhere around the 20-minute mark for my heavyweights. That may change in the last game before we go play in a regular-season game. Once the dust settles and the regular-season begins, I’m looking at 34 is the easy number for me to talk about.”
That 34 minutes number will probably bump up for both Simmons and Embiid. Brown did say in the past that he would like to play Embiid somewhere around 38 minutes in the playoffs considering he has done a terrific job of keeping himself in shape. Brown reiterated that point on Monday and that he would also like to hammer down a solid rotation as well.
“In the playoffs, I hope I can play Joel Embiid 38 minutes and Ben not that far off,” the coach added. “So you can see the trajectory that I expect it to go with those two players that I mentioned. In relation to the rotation, that stuff that we’re going through now and I know the scrimmage games, there’ll be more than enough time to look at different rotations especially given the lack of extended minutes our starters will receive.”
Philadelphia is making major changes to their rotation as they are moving Simmons off the ball and moving Shake Milton into the starting lineup. On top of that, Al Horford is now being moved to the bench. These three scrimmage games should give Brown enough time to figure out a regular rotation that he can lean on moving forward.
“I think by the time the dust settles and the regular-season begins,” he finished with. “I think there’s enough of a runway to settle on something. We get it’s all moving parts and performance-driven, but that’s how I hope it plays out.”
When the Sixers face the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday, there will be a lot of eyes on how the rotation will be played out. It will be interesting to see who Brown plays and who he doesn’t. [lawrence-related id=35081,35072,35065]