The Philadelphia 76ers are finally making strides towards being a competitive team, and September will be the start of that.
The Philadelphia 76ers will be on the upswing finally this season. After getting the top overall pick in this year’s draft and selecting Ben Simmons, the team made some solid pickups in the free agent market. Adding all of that onto the young players they have been developing one the past few years, and some other players drafted in 2014 that are finally ready to debut, things are looking positive — finally.
It seems like the turning point was the NBA Draft, but that’s actually not the case. The turning point will come late this month, in September. The turning point will be from September 27th to September 30th.
Those are the dates the team will hold their training camp at Stockton University leading up to their preseason debut on October 4th.
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So why is this the turning point, and not the draft? Well, this is really the first time this interesting team is going to come together and build up a dynamic. No, this isn’t the first time Ben Simmons is appearing in a Sixers uniform — that was during Summer League — but it is the first time he’s getting to work alongside a lot of his new teammates, and the first time this team will be playing with a fresh look.
The look really is fresh. Looking at the roster from last season, a lot of the pieces that were important are gone.
Elton Brand will likely retire. Isaiah Canaan, Carl Landry, Kendall Marshall, and Ish Smith are all gone. That’s a third of the team’s final roster from the final game of the season.
Losing these players isn’t necessarily all a bad thing. We had to see those pieces go at some point. The Sixers were not going to compete with those pieces.
Now, the team has a fresh look. The Sixers brought in Simmons, Dario Saric, will be debuting Joel Embiid, and also have Sergio Rodriguez, Gerald Henderson, and Jerryd Bayless.
In addition to those players, players who are locks for making the team, there are the players that will be entering this dynamic in a tough position. Players that might not be making the team, and players that are coming in with a ton to prove. Those players include, but are not limited to Nik Stausaks, Anthony Barber, and T.J. McConnell.
The great thing about the nature of the team now is that it’s more competitive. So for those trying to make the team, they’re going to have to try pretty hard.
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This is the first time this unique bunch is coming together to train together. This is the first time the coaching staff is meeting with these players as a whole to set their expectations for the season. This is the first time Brett Brown is privileged enough to have a set of guys that can be considered somewhat coherent as a unit. This is the turning point.
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48 wins over the last three seasons is dismal. But the tone is changing, the roster has changed, and it all comes together in late September. This is the turning point of the Sixers franchise.