Philadelphia 76ers: No Joel Embiid-Al Horford lineups in practices yet
The Philadelphia 76ers aren’t having Joel Embiid and Al Horford practice in the same lineups.
Philadelphia 76ers head coach Brett Brown has been trying a lot of new things at the Disney bubble. One thing he hasn’t done in any practices thus far is playing Joel Embiid and Al Horford together in the same lineup, according to Tim Bontemps of ESPN.
Brett Brown says that Joel Embiid and Al Horford have not played together at all in practice thus far. He says Horford has been "great" in accepting what likely will be a significantly lesser role in the new arrangement Philadelphia is operating under.
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) July 21, 2020
Before every overreacts, let’s consider that it was already known that Horford was going to be coming off the bench when Ben Simmons was slid down to the power forward spot, and Shake Milton became the starting point guard.
Nothing changes
Simmons and Tobias Harris are better options at the four spot than Horford so it seemed like big man wouldn’t get a lot of minutes playing at that spot as I wrote before. However, that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t get any time at the power forward spot.
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There’s some evidence that the pairing could work under the right circumstances. It’s also hard to see Brown only playing Horford 10 minutes a night if the head coach keeps true to his plan about Embiid’s playoff minutes. On a recent podcast, I said I could see Hoford playing around 16-20 minutes a game and I still hold true to that despite the fact the two big men haven’t played together during practice.
To be fair to Brown, he’s trying to incorporate a new starting five, and getting the two centers playing time together during practice shouldn’t be a high priority considering they probably won’t play too much together when games begin. The other thing to consider is that they have played most of the season together so Brown shouldn’t have to go over too much during this training camp.
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Considering some of the other news that has already come out of the Philadelphia 76ers training camp, this news about Horford and Embiid not playing together isn’t completely surprising.