Position changes on the Philadelphia 76ers will impact Al Horford.
Philadelphia 76ers head coach Brett Brown recently revealed that he’s shifted Ben Simmons to power forward and Shake Milton to point guard in the team’s practices. While those are major moves in themselves, there is a major side effect of these moves and it directly impacts Al Horford.
Before the NBA hiatus, Brown experimented with Horford coming off the bench. Now with Brown running practices with Simmons only at power forward and having Milton as the point guard, it becomes apparent that Horford is being relegated to the bench.
Of course, this doesn’t appear set in stone but based on what was said about Simmons’ and Milton’s position changes it appears to be at least trending in that direction. It’s been something that we at The Sixer Sense have pleaded for some time now, so it’s nice to see it having the potential to become reality.
The impact.
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Working under that assumption, minutes may end up being even harder for Horford to come by. Before Simmons was practicing at the power forward spot, Tobias Harris and to a lesser extent Mike Scott were the only two rivals for Horford getting minutes at the power forward spot coming off the bench.
With Simmons working as the Sixers power forward now that’s at least two players in Simmons and Harris that would be better options at power forward next to center Joel Embiid than Horford. There will be fewer minutes for Embiid and Horford to co-exist on the floor. With Embiid expected to play around 38 minutes per night during the playoffs, it doesn’t give Horford many minutes at all at center.
Playing Simmons at the four spot will mean fewer minutes for Horford to play. While there should be a positive impact for the Philadelphia 76ers, it probably negatively impact Horford’s minutes moving forward.