CAMDEN, N.J. — The preseason is for figuring out rotations and how the team is going to play when the regular season begins. The Philadelphia 76ers have quality depth, so coach Nick Nurse has to figure out who plays and who doesn’t.
One assumes the Sixers will start Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Tobias Harris, PJ Tucker and James Harden (if he remains). Nurse has to figure out what his bench will look like.
“I don’t have a very good idea,” Nurse laughed about his rotation at the moment. “Obviously, there’s a group of guys I would say that love to get there and find out what it is. It’s really hard to do in the preseason. It is because you don’t really get everybody there. Hopefully, we will for a couple games, so we can at least look at it.”
A guy like Furkan Korkmaz has yet to show Nurse what he can do due to a leg strain. Other wing players have had a jump-start in their auditions for playing time. Danny Green, Kelly Oubre Jr., Danuel House Jr. and others have racked up preseason minutes.
“I think obviously you can pick any one of six starters,” said Nurse. “Paul Reed is probably for sure in the rotation. Where does everybody else fall? I think Oubre’s showing that he’s gonna hit the rotation. Danny has played pretty well. Furk, we haven’t seen now for a while. He’s progressing well. I think he’s gonna be able to go in practice tomorrow (Saturday), but he should be ready to play some minutes on Monday. I gotta look at some guys I haven’t seen yet to figure out the rest of it.”
Then there’s young Jaden Springer, who has shown his talent in the first two games of the preseason. He has caught the eye of Nurse so all of this is going to be very tough for the new coach to really figure out.
“Jaden Springer’s — just because of the numbers of all those guys I just talked about, I probably have Jaden a little further down just out of need, but he’s kind of vaulted himself back up into the conversation for sure,” Nurse finished. “He’s just done everything we’ve asked him to do, and he’s played really well. That’s how you do it.”
The Sixers continue the preseason on Monday against the Brooklyn Nets on the road.
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