Limited Alternatives
We noted the lack of attention at the small forward position over the summer and questioned the wisdom. While the team needed help at virtually all positions in the offseason, the team focused on rhetoric over the center position, and signing free agents for the back court.
The problem compounded this season, when the team viewed Jerami Grant in a power forward role, a position filled with Richaun Holmes, Dario Saric, and eventually Ben Simmons. With Simmons out, the four was further diluted when Holmes slid to center. He was needed to take minutes there while Noel heals and Embiid and Okafor slowly increase playing minutes.
Season starter Dario Saric stumbled out of the gates this season, leading the team to trade Jerami Grant to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Ersan Ilyasova and a protected 2020 first round pick
The #Sixers will get a 2020 protected pick (1-20). If not conveyed, it would convert to two (2) second-round picks (2022, 2023)
— Keith Pompey (@PompeyOnSixers) November 1, 2016
Once more, the team has limited options at small forward. Will it need to do more? Perhaps, perhaps not. Nobody on the team has begun to panic just yet.