As the Philadelphia 76ers look to close out another week of action, the team still hasn't issued a definitive update on the veteran forward, Dominick Barlow, who has been out with a back injury.
Earlier this week, the Sixers revealed good news when they stated that Barlow was a participant in the team's shootaround session before they hosted the Toronto Raptors. The fact that there still wasn't a timeline to talk about caused a stir of concern due to trust issues the fan base has with the team's injury reporting.
On Saturday, the 76ers returned to the practice court after getting a day off. In what was described as more of a walkthrough, Barlow was a partial participant. When 76ers head coach Nick Nurse was asked about an update on a potential timeline, there weren't any specifics, but he told reporters that Barlow is "progressing." Still in the dark on that.
As far as Barlow's role upon returning goes, there was a hint that the Sixers aren't going to do much to change their current strategy at the center position.
Barlow's challenge
According to Philly Voice's Adam Aaronson, Nick Nurse stated that Barlow "may play a lot of five when returning," due to the state of the roster. Outside of Joel Embiid, Adem Bona, and Ariel Hukporti, the 76ers don't have a player who is billed as a natural center on the main roster.
Hukporti went down with an Achilles injury during the preseason. He isn't going to take the court for the Sixers this year. Bona is currently dealing with an injury, and he won't get re-evaluated until sometime next week. Embiid is dealing with a minor setback that isn't forcing consecutive absences, but he's bound to miss games over time. And while Tacko Fall certainly looks the part of a true center, the Sixers haven’t given him a real chance to show it.
Jabari Walker has been tasked with the challenge of playing beyond power forward, and he’s done well. Barlow is seemingly finding out that he’ll be in the same boat when he returns to the court to make his season debut with the 76ers.
Last year, Barlow started in 59 of the 71 games he appeared in, picking up 23.8 minutes of action on average. The veteran forward produced averages of 7.7 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 1.2 assists. While he played an estimated nearly 90% of his minutes as a power forward, the small percentage of center minutes clearly intrigued Nurse enough to feel confident that a healthy Barlow should be utilized as a backup center as long as the 76ers don’t make any changes to the current roster.
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