The Philadelphia 76ers have had a busy offseason and one of those moves was to bring in Dwight Howard on a deal to be the backup big man to Joel Embiid. He has proven to be a good signing thus far as he even filled in for Embiid on Friday and had a big game.
However, there was another big man added that the team made in the offseason, and that was young Tony Bradley.
After a few seasons with the Utah Jazz, he is looking for a bigger opportunity in Philadelphia, and on Friday, he made the most of it. He had seven points on 3-for-3 shooting as well as six rebounds in a 113-107 preseason win over the Indiana Pacers.
That type of play has Howard giving out nicknames for him.
“One thing that I’ve been talking to Tony about is making sure he comes in and provides energy on every single play,” said Howard. “I call him the battery pack so when he comes in, he’s got to be charged up. Go out there, run the floor, set hard screens, roll hard, finish, he’s doing an amazing job.”
Whenever a player can come off the bench and provide the needed energy, the team feeds off of that. Bradley was tough and physical down low against Indiana’s Domantas Sabonis and he earned the respect of his coach as well.
“I thought Tony, the second stint was very good once he did what we were trying to get him to do,” said Doc Rivers. “He started doing it and I thought that freed up a lot of our guys.”
The good thing with Bradley is that he is just 22-years old. This has been an odd time for everybody due to everything being so short due to the global pandemic. He has had to be brought up to speed much quicker than usual and Howard likes that.
“I’m very proud of him,” the veteran big man added. He’s a young guy so he’s learning how to work in this league and to see his progression from the first day of camp until now has been amazing. Hopefully, he stays hungry and humble and continues to work.” [lawrence-related id=40397,40394,40375]