The Philadelphia 76ers held a scrimmage on Sunday, which gave us our first meaningful look at how players developed this offseason.
At the Blue x White scrimmage Sunday at the Palestra, some Philadelphia 76ers players really came to ball. Some didn’t quite as much, but everyone’s performance is still worth assessing.
Keep in mind that we’re working with a small sample size here, so any conclusions made are necessarily premature. There are also no official stats, so all analysis is based solely on the eye test.
*Note* – Joel Embiid and Timothe Luwawu-Caborrot did not play due to injury
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I’ll be honest: E. Okafor and Humphries played better than I thought they would. Granted, I didn’t expect much in the first place. The former hasn’t played since 2013, and the latter married a Kardashian. Enough said.
Regardless though, I was pleasantly surprised. E. Okafor took a couple wild turnarounds that had no business going in, but still did anyway. Humphries had at least two and-ones. Both of them screened hard, and hustled everywhere. Essentially, they were the perfect training camp players.
Johnson showed why he was a starter last year. He did everything Humphries and E. Okafor did, and he did it twice as well. He may have a bigger on-court impact than people are expecting this year.
Redick was not as impactful as I would’ve hoped. He just never really seemed to leave his mark on the game. I know he’s an off-ball player by design, but I still feel like he could’ve done more. He’ll have to take on a bigger role to justify his $23 million contract.
Bayless was similarly uninspiring, though not bad. He played smart basketball, but he definitely never took over the game. He was a functional veteran point guard, and not much more.