Philadelphia 76ers: 3 players who must step up in Orlando

The oddest season of basketball ever is about to occur. The Philadelphia 76ers need their key players to step up as they battle in the Walt Disney World bubble games.

The countdown begins for the first game in the continuation of the NBA season for the Philadelphia 76ers. This has been a long and anticipated resumption to the season. No matter how well you think the Sixers will do, there’s no doubt that it will be interesting and exciting to watch how it all plays out.

As we think about our guys coming back, we have to also think about who must step up in Orlando.

Tobias Harris

If you’ve been watching Matisse Thybulle’s vlogs of life inside the Disney World bubble (and if you haven’t, stop what you’re doing and go watch his videos), then you’ll see that Tobias Harris is positioning himself as basically the leader of the group. We saw some of this earlier in the season, but with everything going on he needs to be taking this role even more seriously.

The Sixers have never really had anyone take this role before, or at least had the whole team listen to him. We’ve needed either Joel Embiid or Ben Simmons to bring the team together and mold them into a family, but unfortunately, their personalities don’t fit the role. We’ll be able to tell by the vocality and fluidity of the Sixers if Tobias has done his part in unifying the team.

Joel Embiid

I have little doubt that the Sixers will go far in this offputting season if Jo doesn’t play to the best of his ability every single game. We’ve heard that he’s been training and grinding during the hiatus, so now is his time to prove everyone who said he’d be out of shape wrong.

Just from pictures and videos, he seems to have gained some muscle definition, especially in his arms. We need to see him use that arm strength as he does his signature backstepping against his defender to turn and hit a fadeaway jumper. We also need to see him get to the line a ton during this odd resumption of a season. This is on his best attributes on the court so hopefully, he can bring it full force.

Shake Milton

You probably thought I was going to say Ben Simmons here, didn’t you? I was thinking about it. Of course we need Simmons to step up in Orlando, but what we really need is Shake Milton to come out and knock down shots like nobody’s business. Brett Brown has been playing around with Shake at point and Ben at power forward. I hope he takes complete advantage of the role he’s going to be in.

Hopefully, Shake can become the Markelle Foltz that we never had. Need I say more?