The Sixers are looking to finally turn the corner and finally be relevant in the NBA again. They are going to be one of the bigger teams in the league this season. Ben Simmons is standing at 6’10 and will play some point guard. Dario Saric is also 6’10 and will see time at small forward. Joel Embiid is grew and is now standing at 7’2. Nerlens Noel is 6’11 along with Jahlil Okafor who is also 6’11 and both will take turns defending at the power forward and center position.
This season the Sixers are deeper at point guard with Jerryd Bayless and Sergio Rodriguez. The Sixers will continue develop wing players Jerami Grant and Hollis Thompson. Rookie Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot get some minutes within the rotation through out the season if he isn’t sent to the D-League. But the core of this Sixers team belongs to the big men. Last season Robert Covington saw a few minutes at the power forward position but likely will not see any minutes there this season. Sixers coach Brett Brown could cut loose at some point during the season and go with a tall lineup that features Covington, Embiid, Okafor, Saric and Ben Simmons running the point. Here is my projection of what the Sixers depth chart could look like going into training camp and into the regular season.
Big Man Rotation
We saw through out last season that playing Noel and Okafor at the same time never worked. Both love being in the paint and it just took up too much space. I’ll keep them both on the roster for now but also admitting that it will be interesting to see how Brett Brown makes the big man rotation work. The big deal is to give Simmons room operate especially driving to the rim which he is very good at. This gives whoever is playing center the whole entire paint to play with too. Bringing Embiid off the bench as the sixth or seventh man to start the season would be very smart instead of throwing him out there and maybe getting hurt again. Noel doesn’t like the way the Sixers front office are handling all the big men on the roster and it doesn’t seem like he wants to be here in Philly. He will still get solid minutes between the center and power forward position while he is still in Philly but I can’t see him on this team by the end of this season.
Wing Players
Between Nik Stauskas and Hollis Thompson one might be cut by the end of training camp. But luckily for both Stauskas and Thompson, they play the shallowest position on the team. Stauskas in particular didn’t look all that great in a brief summer league appearance. It will be interesting to see if Sixers decide to pick up his option for 2017-18. Hollis could play a little small forward this season if Brett Brown wants to give Robert and Saric a break or he could play some shooting guard too like last season if the Sixers send rookie Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot to the D-League.
The Final Spot
The way I look at it is TJ McConnell will probably beat out Cat Barber, Shawn Long, James Webb III and Brandon Paul for the final spot on the roster. McConnell is somewhat limited to what he can do on the court but he was quietly pretty effective as a rookie last season. He’s qualified to be the second or third point guard on this team.