Philadelphia 76ers: High post passing is Joel Embiid’s next skill to master

In Joel Embiid’s absence, the Philadelphia 76ers have used Boban Marjanovic as a playmaker at the elbow. Brett Brown should use Embiid in a similar fashion.

Joel Embiid has not suited up for the Philadelphia 76ers since before the All-Star break, and the team has learned a lot about itself in the absence of their charismatic MVP candidate. Recent acquisition Boban Marjanovic stepped in to start for the Cameroonian during the first two games of his absence, and the 7-foot-3 Serbian has done an acceptable job of replacing the NBA’s best center.

Since Boban’s skill set has many more limitations than Embiid’s, coach Brett Brown has changed his team’s offensive playbook to accommodate Ben Simmons and the team’s perimeter scorers. Simmons has given the ball to the Serbian at the high post, allowing Simmons and J.J. Redick, Tobias Harris, and Jimmy Butler cut around him before finding space and receiving a pass from Marjanovic. It has yielded some success, with the Sixers winning two of their three games since the All-Star break.

Brown has come under scrutiny for placing Embiid on the perimeter too often, but letting him make plays from the elbow creates a middle-ground where he spaces the floor but still provides a scoring threat.

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The third-year center has struggled with holding onto the ball for his whole career, with an average of 3.7 turnovers per game. He will have to improve his court vision in order to make this into a regular thing, yet he already has the shooting and driving ability to draw an extra defender. He has to learn to make the pass and find the open man, though.

Embiid should draw his defender out to the free-throw line if he plays there, and therefore the paint would open up for Simmons and Butler to drive or cut into. Using him in this Nikola Jokic-style role would take him out of the post on some occasions, but with players as talented as Simmons, Butler, and Harris surrounding him, he knows that he cannot take a defender one-on-one in the post on every possession.

The Process has already said that he doesn’t like shooting threes, and while using him at the elbow or free-throw line would keep him out of the paint, it would open things up for his teammates and give him a new dimension to his game for defenses to think about when trying to stop him. Marjanovic has averaged three assists per-36 minutes in his seven games with the Philadelphia 76ers, and Embiid can easily come close to that mark without taking away his touches in the low post.

The Kansas product plays his best when posting up, but he has to diversify his game and learn to find his teammates in order to take the next step in his development. Although throwing him into that role this late into the season is trial by fire, he has to learn somehow and has the basketball IQ to adapt to the role quickly. And when his teammates put effort into moving off the ball, they will make it easy for him to find them.

This set will not give Simmons the playmaking opportunities he has grown accustomed to with the Philadelphia 76ers, yet he has shown more aggression when trying to score in Embiid’s absence, so letting the Australian play off the ball may motivate him to keep that mindset.

Brown does not need to use Embiid in this fashion all the time, but running this set a few times per game will keep defenses guessing, which every team has to do to win games.