Following their litany of new signings this offseason, the Philadelphia 76ers will look considerably different in the upcoming campaign. Most players from last season’s rotation took a ride out of the city in free agency, with fresh upgrades slated to take up their positions as the franchise aims for a much better finish in 2024-25.
Attendant to that, of course, is the wider canvas that Nick Nurse and the entire coaching staff will have when it comes to deciding lineup combinations for various situations. When healthy, the team has one of the wider decks in the NBA, so the men on the sidelines can definitely tap into their creative juices more than they did last season.
76ers lineup prediction pitches bold idea that goes too far
Bleacher Report’s Dan Favale recently proposed some wild lineups for every team to possibly parade next season, and he definitely didn’t shy away from cooking up some truly crazy ones, especially for the Philadelphia 76ers.
For the team, he pitched a five-man lineup of Tyrese Maxey, Kelly Oubre Jr., Caleb Martin, Paul George, and Guerschon Yabusele. Yes, you read that right. The 2023 Most Valuable Player is nowhere in plain sight.
The reasoning is that the 76ers can generate a lot more dribble-drive actions and move with more decisiveness, as opposed to the varied offensive they have with Embiid and Maxey alternating between conventional post-ups and dynamic pick-and-roll play.
Theoretically, it makes sense. NBA teams are almost required to have at least one go-to, small lineup for very specific situations, but in reality, Philly is not ideally constructed to render the idea as a functional one and not merely imaginary from the lens of someone intending to simply go off and hoist an idea into the air.
Everyone on that lineup will be on the receiving end of mismatches on the defensive end. Save for Yabusele’s inherent girth, there’s little resistance from that unit physicality-wise. Rebounding would also be a massive issue.
While probably tenable against weaker competition, it’s not something the 76ers can rely on against much stronger teams that frequently go small, like the Celtics and this time, the Knicks. Philadelphia goes where Embiid takes them, and until he’s done in limb, that will remain the case whether fans like it or not.