Philadelphia 76ers Rookie Report: No NBA minutes
For the first time this season, none of the Philadelphia 76ers rookies didn’t play in any games for the franchise this past week.
In regards to playing in the NBA, this was by far the worst week for the Philadelphia 76ers. Due to injuries and added depth after the trade deadline, it has made minutes hard to come by for the young players on the roster.
16th pick, 2018
Sadly, there’s no offical update on Zhaire Smith. He has yet to make his Sixers or Delaware Blue Coats debut. However, Jason Blevins of Philly Front Office did tweet several videos of Smith putting up jump shots, which showed solid mechanics. Hopefully, once Smith does return to action he will help space the floor for both Delaware and Philly.
36th pick, 2017
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It was likely that when Boban Marjanovic was brought in as a part of the Tobias Harris trade, that he would get a portion of Jonah Bolden‘s minutes at backup center. However, Bolden didn’t get any playing time at all this past week. He would have been a better option versus the Boston Celtics, but head coach Brett Brown wanted to learn what Marjanovic could do and was willing to deal with the European big man struggle, according to Derek Bodner of The Athletic.
As Brown becomes more familiar with his new center, hopefully he will start relying on Bolden in certain matchups. However, Noah Levick of NBCSPhilly tweeted that Brown may use Bolden more at the power forward spot and that the head coach “‘doesn’t want to forget about'” the rookie big man.
54th pick, 2018
Shake Milton did have surgery on the finger he broke and will be re-evaluated in 2-3 weeks according to Serena Winters of NBCSPhilly.com. Seeing as Furkan Korkmaz, Jonathon Simmons and James Ennis are all competing for playing time as a backup wing per Levick, there’s no need to rush back the rookie.
Undrafted, 2018
On a positive note, Haywood Highsmith saw the most game action of all the Sixers rookies by playing in three games with the Blue Coats. There is one concern in regards to his playing time; he didn’t start in any games at all and only averaged 20.3 minutes and 6.3 points in those three games. The more disturbing trending is that he shot 2-13 from downtown during that same span. This is a bad look for Highsmith and hopefully he can turn it around sooner rather than later.
Season stats: Blue Coats
GP 31| MINS 31.8| FG% 42.6| 3P% 34.7| FT% 63.3| TRB 6.6| AST 2.4| STL 1.8| BKL 0.6| PF 1.7| TOV 1.8| PTS 12.3
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- It appears that for the time moving forward the rookies on the roster will be limited in their ability to receiving playing time with the Philadelphia 76ers. Injuries aside, most of the playing time the rookies will get will most likely be with the Blue Coats moving forward.