PHILADELPHIA — When the Philadelphia 76ers acquired De’Anthony Melton from the Memphis Grizzlies on draft night, one expected he would play a big role in Philadelphia, but maybe not this big.
In his first season with the Sixers, Melton has started a career-high 51 games, averaging a career-high 28 minutes a night, and he has played a career-high 1,795 minutes. His previous career-high in minutes was 1,657 in the 2021-22 season with the Grizzlies.
After scoring 10 points with six rebounds and four assists in Sunday’s win over the Washington Wizards, Melton gave an update on how he’s handling not only the increased minutes, but also all of the injuries he’s had to battle.
“I feel pretty good,” he said. “Just trying to get my body right. Just the everyday work that I’m trying to put in to make sure it stays up to par. I think the staff and everybody’s acknowledged what I’ve been going through so they’ve been helping me out and going out there and just playing hard.”
Considering there are still 15 games left in the season before the playoffs, Melton has to find a way to stay fresh and keep his body right for when the games matter the most in April and May.
“Just physical therapy, lifting, rest when I need to,” he explained. “Just watching what I do with my body, how to help it out.”
Over his last six games since moving back to a bench role, Melton is averaging 10 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists while shooting 46.4% from deep. It’s obvious he is fitting back into a reserve role nicely.
“Just understanding what I gotta do,” Melton added. “Coming off the bench and being in the second group, I got to be a little bit more aggressive offensively. At the same time, I got to be more relaxed and cut down on turnover, bad possessions, stuff like that, because we got to value everything in the second group.”
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