Philadelphia 76ers Front Court Logjam Myth
By Bret Stuter
A Mosaic Team
That assembling of pieces was not all that was required. Brett Brown was so immersed in mentoring , developing, and maturing his roster of young players that he seldom had the time, energy, or tools to examine who fit and how they did so. He entered the season way behind schedule, admitting as such in an interview with CSN Philly.com’s John Finger:
"“ (I need) about two weeks. We’re two weeks behind, I feel. Two weeks behind, and that’s probably even being a little generous. Nik (Stauskas) hasn’t played. It’s more about Jahlil (Okafor) and Nerlens (Noel). It’s a jigsaw puzzle, because, on one level, you want to get our guys playing together, especially Nerlens and Jah, because they really haven’t played much together. We’re (Sam Hinkie and myself) way past not genuinely trying to do this together. When you sit down and he (Hinkie) thinks something and I think something, it’s clear. We will both fight for different things. From a business perspective and trying to grow our program tough decisions might have to be made. He and I have sat down most days over the past few weeks, just touching base and talking about it. It’s never an easy time coming up .I hope to see enough of them. I don’t even want to quantify what that number means. I do want to play them together and I don’t know how long it will be.”Brown said."
Not easy time indeed. The Philadelphia 76ers entered the 2015-2016 without even knowing who that starting point guard might be. Without that key piece, how was the team truly expected to gel at all?
How indeed. A recipe for a 10-72 team.
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