The Philadelphia 76ers appeared to have upgraded their roster depth and bench rotation with a number of offseason moves this summer. Yet the Sixers bench has been among the worst in the league through the first few weeks of the NBA season.
Thanks to the Philadelphia Eagles unprecedented 8-0 start and the Philadelphia Phillies currently playing in the World Series, the 76ers embarrassing start has been largely overshadowed and under-criticized. It goes without saying though that the 76ers are one of the most disappointing teams in the NBA through the first few weeks of the season.
The Sixers need more from the second unit in the weeks to come
One of the main reasons for the team’s rough start has been the lack of bench support. With the additions of De’Anthony Melton, Montrezl Harrell and Danuel House, the Sixers were expecting a competitive bench rotation. That rotation would also include returning contributors from last year in Matisse Thybulle, Furkan Korkmaz, Georges Niang and Paul Reed. I was on the Sixer Sense preseason podcast claiming this was the deepest and strongest bench the franchise has had in years and one of the deepest in the whole league.
The truth is, on paper this roster looks well built. The numbers would say otherwise though. The Sixers are currently dead last, that is 30th out of 30 NBA teams, in bench points per game and rebounds per game. We are getting the worst bench contribution of any NBA team in the league and that is a recipe for failure.
In order for this team to have hopes of not just a deep playoff run, but even making the playoffs, they need significant contributions from the bench players. That may take tweaking by Doc Rivers to figure out which players play well together and fit best on the floor. If there is a silver lining to the James Harden injury, it is that the team will have all of Harden’s minutes to divvy up among the bench players over the next month. Hopefully they will start to play up to the expectations that many of us had for them prior to the season.