Richaun Holmes Will Break Out Soon

The Philadelphia 76ers’ rookie Richaun Holmes showed us he could dunk on Thursday night, and he may be due for a breakout soon.

Richaun Holmes is a name not all NBA fans knew prior to Wednesday night’s game against the Atlanta Hawks, but after he posterized Al Horford with a big dunk, he’s definitely more of a household name than he was before.

The Sixers 2015 draftee rolled smoothly off of a pick and roll play, grabbed a bounce pass, and threw the ball in (can we even still call it a dunk?) over Al Horford who looked just plain silly trying to defend Holmes. The play ended up being number one on SportsCenter‘s top 10 plays on Thursday.

This play is big for both Holmes and the Sixers, who have had huge struggles getting things going on offense this year. As a team, the Sixers are last in offensive rating and points per game. Holmes individually has only been able to contribute 5.8 points per game, and hasn’t been a staple player to the offense by any means. Sure, he hasn’t been awful like some players (Nik Stauskas) have been, but he certainly hasn’t been given the ball enough (15.7% usage and just 14.4 minutes per game). With plays like this, though, one has to think that he may be on his way to a breakout, and start showing Sixers fans more of what he can do.

This one play isn’t enough to think that Holmes is going to be a 15 point per game type of guy, but it’s clear that he can roll off of the ball well. Also, on this play, Jahlil Okafor was on the bench, which makes Holmes one of the players that should be taking the shot. Previously this season, Holmes was splitting some of the front-court backup time with Christian Wood, but he has since been moved down to the D-League Delaware 87ers, so Wood will see more floor time. This alone should lead us to believe that his production will go up within the next few weeks.

Holmes, who has yet to score his hundredth point this season, is just getting warmed up. Through his first seven games, Holmes only scored double digits once. In his most recent seven games (including the Hawks game Wednesday night) he has scored double digits three times. Some might think that this is a product of more minutes, but though both of those seven game stretches, he played the same exact amount of minutes (99).

Additionally more minutes will be available as Nerlens Noel sits out with an injury (although he should be back on Friday against the New York Knicks), and as he is the only true player that can play in the center position when Jahlil Okafor needs a rest.

On top of the offense he’s been showing, he also showed some defensive strengths against the Hawks, too.

Now, this one play doesn’t define Holmes and his defensive abilities by any means, because he’s averaging just 0.8 blocks per game so far this season. But again, here, I’m thinking we may see some breaking out.

Overall, there’s a lot to like about Holmes. Does he have his flaws? Absolutely. He can play sloppy at times, and certainly shows signs of being a rookie, but that’s the case with several players on this team. Looking at each and every player, a lot of them have started to play poorly over the past few weeks, but Holmes seems to be making good strides.

When everyone else seems to be on the negative trend, we can look towards Holmes. He’s due for a breakout.