Who can the Philadelphia 76ers bring in as the 15th man?
By Tim Zhai
Trey Burke
Burke looks to be the most logical choice for the last roster spot. He already has a contract with the 76ers, he idolizes A.I., and, above all else, he’s a guard, a position in which the Sixers don’t have a great deal of depth.
Burke’s role will likely be Simmons’ backup when he needs a breather or if and when Brett Brown wants to put Ben at the power forward position. He would be competing with Raul Neto and/or Shake Milton for that job.
A perennial bench guy, Burke averaged 10.9 points and 2.7 assists last season while shooting 34 percent from 3. A plus defender with the Mavericks, Burke limited his opponent to a 3.6 percent lower effective field goal percentage when he was on the court, according to Cleaning The Glass.
Burke takes a lot of mid-range shots (he’s in the high-90s percentile each of the last three seasons for percentage of shot attempts from mid-range), and, to his credit, he makes a lot of them, making 53 percent of long mids (which puts him in the 98th percentile) in 2017-18 with the Knicks and 55 percent (in the 94th percentile) in 2018-19 with Dallas.
Burke will likely be a contributor, albeit nothing fancy, for the Sixers. The fact that he already has a contract with the Sixers suggests that he’s more likely to make the cut than other players on this list.