With the regular season about to begin, the Philadelphia 76ers already find themselves in the rumor mill. As reported by longtime insider Marc Stein, they were one of the teams interested in Mavericks big man Moussa Cisse, although he ended up getting spared after Dallas parted ways with Dwight Powell instead. Be that as it may, their prior interest in the young center is a quiet showing of the team's potentially brewing distrust with their other options at the position.
It is no secret that the 76ers are currently scrambling for options to man the center position off the bench. While they do not exactly have a dearth of players who can fill the role, their current crop of backup bigs lacks quality right now. As such, the front office is actively on the hunt for another player to add to that pool.
The 76ers are slowly losing trust in their current backup big men
After losing Ariel Hukporti to a season-ending Achilles injury, Philly now has four players who can be the primary backups to Joel Embiid this season, but there is no one player who is a clear frontrunner for the job.
Jabari Walker is probably the best of the bunch right now, but he is a tad undersized to be the full-time backup center. He is best deployed as a forward, as that is the position where the team can fully take advantage of his physical advantages over most of his counterparts at that spot.
Adem Bona is the sensible choice to be the main center on the second unit, given that the team is invested in his growth. However, he is coming off an injury and has just missed the entire preseason due to a sprained foot. The 76ers need to get off to a strong start, and a rusty Bona could very well be detrimental to that cause.
Ditto for Dominick Barlow, who also did not see action during the preseason due to his own injury. He was a constant starter for the 76ers last season before seeing his role get drastically shafted. Now that he has not had any reps to showcase his skills, the team will most definitely not have him as one of their primary choices.
Tacko Fall also did not play in the preseason. In fact, he is the worst option the 76ers have right now, as there are simply too many risks attached with deploying him on the hardwood from offense to defense. If anything, he is more of a situational player.
Cisse is now secured in Dallas, and while the 76ers are no longer able to go full throttle on their reported pursuit of the big man, this chase only reinforces the fact that their current crop of centers are not reliable enough to be clear-cut answers to their perennial issue.
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