PHILADELPHIA — As the Philadelphia 76ers move forward with their title quest for the 2022-23 season, they have a few questions that still need to be answered. One is what to do with the backup center position down the stretch.
At the moment, coach Doc Rivers turns to Montrezl Harrell and Paul Reed to spell Joel Embiid. However, Harrell struggles against longer and more athletic teams, and Reed still hasn’t earned the trust of the coaching staff in order to earn more minutes.
As the deadline approaches, one has to wonder how coach Doc Rivers and the Sixers will handle the backup center spot. Will it be the two options they have now, or will they find a new backup center on the trade market.
If the Sixers don’t make a move to resolve the backup center spot, Rivers is prepared to move forward with Harrell and Reed.
“I’m gonna play them both,” stated Rivers after a win over the Orlando Magic. “They’re just gonna have to push each other. Trez had his moment, the second half was really good actually. The first half, he struggled.”
Because Harrell struggled in the first half on Wednesday, Rivers turned to Reed. However, Reed seemed to be out of place at times, and Philadelphia went back to Harrell after halftime.
“Paul Reed struggled a bit in the first, too, but he hadn’t played and so with him, I thought it was more rust than how he was playing,” Rivers continued. “He was late on a lot of stuff he typically is not late on. The more we start playing him, the better he’ll be at that stuff, but we also have (PJ Tucker) we can play at the 5, so there’s a lot of ways we can go there.”
It will be interesting to see how the Sixers handle the backup center position going forward as they look to tidy their rotation up before the deadline.
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