As the Philadelphia 76ers prepare to face the Boston Celtics in pre-season, head coach Brett Brown outlined the projected starting lineup for the game
The Philadelphia 76ers will face the Boston Celtics on October 4th to begin their preseason. One of the questions through out the off-season was who is going to start for the Sixers this year. Brett Brown released earlier today on the radio that Jerryd Bayless, Gerald Henderson, Robert Covington, Ben Simmons, and Joel Embiid will start.
Front-Court
Ben Simmons, however, will mostly likely not play against Boston. Ben rolled his ankle today earlier in camp and quickly was taken to get precautionary X-Rays. The Sixers will more than likely play safe with their potential franchise player. Power Forward spot could be filled by Dario Saric or perhaps Jahlil Okafor. Nerlens Noel will won’t play much power forward if it all due to him being uncomfortable there last year. Dario will probably take the spot as he plays very similar to Simmons. Robert Covington isn’t much of a surprise as it came down to either him or Simmons (if Simmons would play the 3).
We will not have to wait long to see Joel Embiid, as Brown has named him a starter. Embiid was thought to be a bench player, at least the first half of the season. Causing vast majority of fans to be caught off guard by seeing Embiid starting. JoJo must have been in great shape and played to impress to earn his starting spot. A big concern for Joel is how fit he is. He is on a minutes restrictions for the upcoming regular season mostly due to the fact that he hasn’t played a live game in 2 years. Having Joel be in the starting lineup is only going to raise the hype for the first preseason game for the Sixers.
Back-Court
The point guard and shooting guard spots should come as no surprise as they are solid veterans who are very capable. The competition for these spots are high, but the talent is dominated by Jerryd, and Gerald. The playing time of T.J. McConnell and Anthony Barber’s playing minutes are something we should watch closely. With Sergio Rodriguez being the back-up, T.J. and Cat will being battling for the 3rd point guard spot.
Rotations
There is a lot of excitement coming into the season. Brett Brown will be able to mix and match a lot of players in the preseason to see what works. One thing that arises due to the starting 5, what are the rotations? The chance of Okafor and Noel playing on the floor at the same time are slim. Mostly due to the lack of production they perform when on the court at the same time. How he plays Jerami Grant and Richaun Holmes will help us better understand their spots on the roster as well. Brown will answer a lot of our questions on Oct. 4 as to what he plans to do with Okafor and Noel as well as the guard positions.
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Brown has a lot on his plate at the moment, but he is going to make a lot of fans happy starting Joel. The hype for this team keeps going up, hopefully it will continue through game one.