Philadelphia 76ers, may we approach the bench?

The Philadelphia 76ers entered the season with the potential to boast a great NBA bench. While that didn’t develop, have the Philadelphia 76ers landed a post-season worthy bench?

These Philadelphia 76ers have done more with less than any other NBA team.  In the 2017-2018 season, this team is winning. As of early March 2018, the 76ers are fighting through the fifth worst scoring bench in the NBA. Does that surprise anyone? After all, the team has seen almost no production from top-pick Markelle Fultz.

But Fultz, although the marquis name on the team, did not sit on the bench as  the only injured player for the 76ers this season. The team lost the opportunity to develop shooting guard Furkan Korkmaz thanks to an untimely foot injury.  And after trading Jahlil Okafor and Nik Stauskas (plus a pick) for a temporary rental of Trevor Booker, the team paused at filling the vacated roster spot.

Short handed bench

While other teams field 15 players, the Philadelphia 76ers seemed to be content to play 12 on a season everyone considered as a potential playoff run. On a bench intended to have enough fire power to pull in plenty of rebounds, score enough points, and have plenty of real depth, nothing seemed to go right. The starting five is certainly capable enough.

But it’s a long 82 game season. And with a shallow and somewhat unreliable bench,  the starters began to fall to injury. Simultaneously, the team had to compensate for resting starting center Joel Embiid on back to backs.  All the while,  the depth of the shallow bench found itself strained even further. Without a bench, Coach Brett Brown was forced to “make do” with young players who were learning roles.