The center position is one of the most stacked for the Philadelphia 76ers, but there’s still work to do to make it as good as it can be.
The Philadelphia 76ers have a lot of work to do just based on their record from last season. 10-72 is one of the most ugly records in recent NBA memory, and it was just one loss away from tying the worst record in NBA history.
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It could be argued that if the Sixers didn’t pick up point guard Ish Smith partway through the season, they would have only won 5 or 6 games throughout the year. That statement might have some truth to it, in my opinion. They were not good before Smith, and even with Smith, fell apart towards the end of the season.
With that said, it’s obvious that the Sixers have improvements that can be made in every category, and in every position on the floor. The center position is one of the most dominant at the moment, but still has some things that could be done in order to make it a better matchup against other NBA teams next season.
The Sixers have a great issue at the moment, they have too many talented centers. This came about from drafting the best player available over the last three drafts rather than drafting based on the needs of the team’s roster. This brings up a unique issue, where they will have to eventually trade one of their big men to be most effective.
Jahlil Okafor, Nerlens Noel, Joel Embiid, and Richaun Holmes are all players that should see significant minutes at the five position next season. Each of them have things that they could work on individually, and if they can do that, the position as a whole should be much more cohesive than in past seasons.
Next: Last season
Last season, we saw two distinct periods from the center position for the Sixers. The Okafor period, and the Noel period.
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Jahlil Okafor started the season as center, with Nerlens Noel slotted at the power forward spot. Okafor had just come off of playing center at Duke, and Nerlens Noel had reportedly been working on his jump shot in his hometown over the summer, which was supposed to lead to him becoming a more effective four.
Unfortunately, that’s not how it played out. Noel struggled immensely from the four spot, and partway through the season, Okafor and Noel were removed from being in overlapping lineups because of this.
After a while, the duo was placed in the same lineup again, but instead of Noel playing as the power forward, Okafor was placed there. This was less troubling for Okafor than it was for Noel when he was at the four. Since Okafor had some solid ball-handling skills for a player with such big hands, he did fairly decent in the four spot, but still would have been more effective as a center.
Moving forward, with Ben Simmons and Dario Saric joining the team, both players who are versatile power forwards, one would expect that the Sixers are going to move Okafor and Noel to be the team’s centers.
One added portion to the Sixers’ center position last season was Richaun Holmes. Holmes often played garbage minutes, and played more often at the four than the center. His performance in the center slot was practically negligible.
Next: Upcoming season
This season, there are a ton of minutes to distribute in the five spot. Noel, Okafor, Holmes, and Embiid will all play some time there. On a nightly basis, that’s a lot of minutes to go around. The only positive here is that the Sixers won’t ever be disadvantaged when big lineups come around.
I’d say that Brown will use Okafor and Embiid often in the four, as well as Holmes when he plays, in order to give Noel the start at center. Some think Embiid will play forward mostly, but with him reportedly growing to 7-3, that doesn’t make much sense.
It seems reasonable to expect the Sixers to start the season with all of these big men, rather than trading any of them like we previously thought that they might. I think Okafor and Noel are the first two in the depth chart in the center position.
Truly, I think the center position is the most important position for Brett Brown and his assistant coaches to figure out leading up to the season. There is no other position on the team that has so much talent locked in here, and so much anticipation for how the team will handle it.
Brown and co. Should allocate time at the beginning of the season — maybe the first 10 games or so — to rotate different players in as starting centers and try different lineups, building around Simmons at the four spot and a different center each night to see what works best.
In the following slides, I will detail what each player needs to do individually to improve the center position as a whole.
Next: Jahlil Okafor
Despite closing out last season in the four spot, I expect Okafor to play center for the most part this season, as I said earlier. Okafor had a stellar rookie year, in my opinion, but I think he can do more.
The biggest question with Okafor since he has come into the league has been his defensive abilities. Although he wasn’t a lock-down defender nor a rim protector last year by any means, he did excel defending in the post, forcing his opposition to shoot about 5 percent less when he was guarding them in the post.
Still, Okafor didn’t have much of a rim protecting ability, and was a bit of a liability when he was away from the hoop. So clearly, Okafor would be wise to focus on improving in those areas.
Another area that will make Okafor a huge weapon is if he improves his shooting range. Last year, he shot at least 35 percent from the field up to 16 feet away from the hoop, but dropped down to 27 percent between 16 feet and the 3-point line. So, for next season, if he can improve that even to just 30 percent, he would make himself a huge threat to opposing defenses.
If Okafor is a threat to make shots from 16 feet any beyond, the defense will have to come out and challenge him. Usually, from that distance, it’s going to be one player challenging him, and Okafor almost always wins his one-on-one match-ups. He will blow right by those players and muscle through them if he has to.
Lastly, Okafor needs to learn to pass a bit more out of the paint. Okafor often got the ball last season and kept it in his hands, but if the offense flowed through him it would be a truly great improvement.
Part of the reason Okafor didn’t really pass last season was because there wasn’t many shooting weapons or scoring weapons on the team besides Okafor. This year, however, with more weapons and more shooters, Okafor has to pass to make the center position as effective as possible.
Next: Nerlens Noel
Nerlens Noel has a lot of individual improvements to make, but some fans seem to be overlooking that, compared to how hard they grade Okafor, especially since Noel has more experience than Okafor. Noel is a solid defender, especially in the paint, but can do almost no damage offensively from beyond a 5-foot radius from the rim.
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This can be a huge issue, especially since there are other players on the Sixers with the same issue. Ben Simmons himself can’t really finish shots if they aren’t at the rim. So if you have two players on the floor who can’t do much scoring away from the rim, you’re bound to have spacing issues.
Last summer Noel was reportedly working on his jump-shot in his hometown in New England, but when the regular season came around, it certainly wasn’t an evident improvement. Nerlens shot 30 percent from the field between 3 and 16 feet away from the hoop, and dropped down to 23 percent in between 16 feet and the 3-point line. Miraculously, because of only two attempted 3-pointers all season, he shot 50 percent from beyond the arc.
Although Noel has shown improvement in the past with catching passes (when he came into the league he had huge butter finger issues) he does need to continue to improve that. He seems sloppy when he’s going to catch the ball, and when he gets the ball, if he moves rapidly, he’s likely good for a turnover, somehow launching the ball 15 rows into the crowd.
Lastly, I’d like to see Noel do more off of the ball besides pick-and-roll. When he’s not setting a screen or waiting near the hoop for a lob or rebound, it seems like he just stands there. He needs to add some motion into his game, and build his stamina so that his body has the capabilities to add that layer to his game.
Next: Richaun Holmes
Richaun Holmes doesn’t have a whole lot to improve on when comparing to last season, simply because he didn’t get a ton of playing time with the Sixers. This was due to the large amount of experimentation with Okafor and Noel almost all season long.
Holmes closed the season playing just under 14 minutes per game, averaging 5.6 points and 2.6 rebounds. By far the most disappointing thing about his season was his 3-point shooting. Although not a sharpshooter by any means, he did do well at Bowling Green University, shooting 41.9 percent from beyond the arc in his final year off of nearly 50 attempts.
With just about the same amount of attempts with the Sixers last season, he sunk only 18.2 percent. The extended distance of the NBA 3-point line may have gotten to Holmes, but I’d love to see him take more 3-pointers next season, and of course, make a higher volume of those attempted shots.
Holmes clearly did have a shooting skill, and perhaps that shooting just didn’t fit with what the Sixers needed from him, and he couldn’t get in a groove. But I do believe that the team could use a tool like that, a big man with 3-point ability, big time, and if Holmes can demonstrate that he’s set up well as far as having a future with this team.
Next: Joel Embiid
As far as Joel Embiid is concerned, there is nothing to base his future games off of, since he has appeared in zero NBA games up to this point. Still, we can set goals based on what has happened since he was drafted.
Since he was drafted, he has re-injured his foot, and arguably that was due to him being somewhat careless with his initial injury recovery. So, what we’d obviously like to see from him is a more general awareness of needing to be careful with his foot, especially off of the floor.
Aside from that, we have seen what Joel has been working on in pregame warmups. In that, we’ve seen solid 3-point shooting, and decent free-throw shooting as well. Although I don’t foresee any scenarios where Embiid becomes a Chris Bosh-like 3-point shooting center, I do think he should make himself available for a few 3-point looks a night.
Additionally, when he does make it to the free-throw line, I’d like to see him sink 60 percent or higher of his attempts.
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These are more or less goals than they are improvements for Embiid, but like I said, we can’t really ask Embiid to improve what doesn’t quite exist yet. Embiid simply being on the floor is an improvement from past seasons in the center position, if he does in fact play there more than he does at the power forward slot.