The Philadelphia 76ers are getting set to begin the 2020-21 season on Dec. 23 against the Washington Wizards and they play the first of two preseason games on Tuesday. After a busy offseason where the team traded away two starters, the question becomes what will the new starting lineup look like?
Of course, the only players who can be inked into the starting unit is Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Tobias Harris. As training camp continues on, big man Dwight Howard seemed to settle that question when describing how scrimmages work under new coach Doc Rivers.
“When we do our scrimmages and we’re doing our work, it was the starters, the guys who have been here with the addition of Danny (Green) and Seth (Curry) mixed them in with Ben and Joel, and Tobias,” Howard described. “Then with the second unit, you have me (Tyrese) Maxey, Mike Scott, Korky (Furkan Korkmaz), Dakota (Mathias), and those guys.”
Having Curry and Green start makes a ton of sense due to them being excellent shooters from deep. Curry shot 45.2% from deep for the Dallas Mavericks in the 2019-20 season and Green is a career 40% shooter from deep and the Sixers have made it a point to have shooters flanking the stars.
As practice continues on, Howard knows how important it is to push that starting unit. The bench has to give them a battle in every practice and make them better to prepare them for some games.
“We’ve been doing a good job of just pushing those guys and making sure that every possession they got to work for a shot,” Howard lamented. “We don’t want to give them anything easy. We know that in order for us to win the championship, we have to be the unit to push the first team the hardest. We have to give them great defense, we have to pressure them on every play to make them work. I think if we continue to do that, it’s going to help our continuity, but it’s also going to raise up the level of everybody’s play.”
The Sixers will roll out a new team on Tuesday against the Boston Celtics in the preseason opener and it will be the beginning of what they hope will be a very successful season. [lawrence-related id=40114,40111,40108]