FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Training camp is over for the Philadelphia 76ers after a successful week at Colorado State University. They were able to get everybody on the same page under new coach Nick Nurse.
The attention now shifts to the preseason opener on Sunday against the Boston Celtics. The Sixers will likely have a full roster, but it’s fair to wonder who will play and who will sit in the preseason matchup.
For example, James Harden is back with the Sixers, but he didn’t participate in everything until Friday as Philadelphia continues to ramp him up. Will he play on Sunday? Will Joel Embiid play on Sunday? There are many questions.
“I do not know,” Nurse said. “I think we still got a number of people that we’re trying to kind of ramp up to get to Sunday. So I don’t know how that’ll go yet. We certainly got another day and I think tomorrow (Saturday) will be a hard-working, physical day. Just training camp so you don’t really kind of pare down going into that stuff. We’re still going to get after it and compete. So I’ll see how everybody comes out after that and see where we are.”
The Sixers left for Boston on Friday after wrapping up camp, leaving Nurse to figure out who will play, when and where against the Celtics. It’s just the preseason opener so these are just warmup games.
“I don’t really have one as of yet,” Nurse said of a starting lineup. “I’ll probably push some lineups, rotations around a little bit on the flight here this afternoon (Friday). Probably a little better question, but I think all that stuff’s just a little bit fluid, too. Again, seeing how everybody comes out tomorrow, and usually at this time, especially the first game it’s just kind of where they are.”
As far as minutes go, it depends on the player. Nurse will listen to his guys and see how they are feeling and what they want out of the preseason schedule.
“A lot of communication with them, how they’re feeling,” Nurse explained. “Some guys want the minutes for conditioning and some guys just want to kind of get started on the minutes and some guys won’t be ready. So a little bit of everything. So it’s a little bit hard to say ‘This is what we’re gonna do’ and even if we do, five minutes into the game that seems to change all the time so we’ll be ready to go no matter what.”
The Sixers will take on the Celtics at 6 p.m. EDT on Sunday.
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