Philadelphia 76ers: Could Brett Brown use a 10-11 man rotation?

How will the Philadelphia 76ers’ rotation shape up?

Preseason basketball has officially begun for the Philadelphia 76ers, allowing us to rejoice that we have actual games to watch to make our nights easier. The team’s starting five, even the next two off the bench is set and ready to go. At the very least the next two bench spots could be filled, but could Brett Brown use a 10-11 man rotation early on in the season?

There’s certainly options to be tested for that question to be answered. The current bench is not like years past — the last two years in particular. Long gone are the days of guys that do one or two things well like Marco Belinelli, Ersan Ilyasova, T.J. McConnell, and so on.

The second unit guys fighting for consistent rotation minutes are Trey Burke, Matisse Thybulle, Raul Neto, Zhaire Smith, Kyle O’Quinn, Furkan Korkmaz, Shake Milton, and Jonah Bolden. That’s basically the entire bench but that’s how uncertain it is of who those minutes will go to. Outside looking in, it appears as if Korkmaz, Milton and Bolden will be riding the pine.

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The beginning part of the season will be a gauntlet. Ramped up competition because guys will be fighting for a place on the floor on this team. Burke and Neto will be going head to head for backup point guard minutes, Thybulle and Smith doing the same with wing minutes — those are key roles within a contending team that need to be filled. O’Quinn factors in as the backup to the backup center which will be important to preserve Joel Embiid and Al Horford.

Training camp, an intrasquad scrimmage, practices, and five preseason games is not a big enough sample size to determine the rotation. A lot of the players up for the minutes are largely unproven, either in the NBA or to Brett Brown. Some auditioning will need to be done against NBA regular season competition.

This idea being tossed around in my head made me think, let’s look to the early portion of the schedule. Mainly looking for games before Christmas that will most likely wind up as blowouts. Blowouts give the opportunity for these second unit guys to prove themselves and carve out guaranteed, steady minutes. As well as gaining minutes with a starter or two, given the type of lead the team has and what quarter it is.

There were eleven games that if I were putting money down, I would bet that the Sixers blow out the opposing team. A game against the Hawks, Suns, Timberwolves and Hornets, three games against the Cavaliers, two games against the Knicks and two games against the Wizards. These games provide flexibility to test out the bench’s abilities.

The blowouts plus the amount of time before you start to question if you need to make a move is good enough for a 10-11 man rotation to be tested out. It is against how Brett Brown has coached in the past but things are different this year.

Having that elevated competitiveness amongst teammates should help the Philadelphia 76ers weed out a steady rotation, down to the NBA standard 9, they’re confident going into the postseason with.