Philadelphia 76ers: 3 players who must step up moving forward

The Philadelphia 76ers have gotten solid play from the roster to begin this season overall. However, this team is far from being a true contender, especially without Ben Simmons playing.

While it’s fair to say that pretty much every player has stepped up their game on some level, there are still several players who need to do more for the Sixers to be successful in Simmons’ absence. There are three players who we will be evaluating in this article. The idea for this piece was inspired by Nathan Beighle of Blue Man Hoop.

3 players who must step up moving forward: Isaiah Joe

To be clear, the idea to have Isaiah Joe on this list was well before he entered the league’s health and safety protocols, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. We at The Sixer Sense wish him a speedy recovery. That being written, when he does come back he needs to produce more.

After having a great preseason, it’s fair to say that Joe has been underwhelming up to this point. In the preseason, he averaged 16.8 points, which is beyond impressive. In 7.7 minutes per game this year, he’s averaging 2.0 points on 31.3 field goal percent and 33.3 percent from deep.

Granted getting around only eight minutes per game will certainly cause some inconsistency shooting the ball. However, it took him until the fourth game of the season until he made his first field goal of the year. That’s not going to cut it if he wants to stay in the rotation.

To be clear, the Sixers don’t need Joe to average 16 points per game, but they need him to be a pretty good 3-point shooter and thus fair he hasn’t been. As long as he gets better as a 3-point marksman then it helps the 76ers.