A lot of people were surprised when the Philadelphia 76ers managed to snag Trendon Watford for dirt cheap in free agency. After all, the versatile forward was coming off consecutive productive seasons in the last four years. As such, many anticipated that the fifth-year player would become a vital piece for the team.
That was indeed the case earlier in the season. Unfortunately, the 76ers have started to veer away from him in the rotation, and as things currently stand, it will likely remain difficult for him to regain the role he had at the earlier juncture of the campaign. It also does not help that Philly is now relatively healthy with more bodies crowding the depth chart.
For now, Watford has been relegated into an emergency role player for the 76ers. He has not seen much action on the hardwood as of late, with Nick Nurse and the coaching staff opting for different looks in the frontcourt with Joel Embiid finally looking like his dominant self.
Trendon Watford is starting to fade away from relevance with the 76ers
Before sustaining an injury that held him out for nearly a couple of months, Watford was a staple in the rotation. He averaged 8.9 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 3.6 assists in only 20.3 minutes a night during that span, emerging as arguably their most seamless plug-and-play piece on the roster with his ability to do multiple things on the court.
But since returning from his injury, the script has been completely flipped. Since retuning early this month, his minutes have gone down exponentially to just 8.8 minutes per contest in his last 11 appearances with a couple of DNPs also interspersed in his cameo appearances.
Sure, he has been subpar as of late, but not having considerable court time has certainly affected his play and confidence. The 76ers have preferred going to Dominick Barlow and even Jabari Walker over him, and with Kelly Oubre starting games, there is simply not a lot of minutes to go around at the power forward position.
Nurse is starting to find his go-to rotation moving forward, and sadly, it does not include Watford. This setup is likely to subsist barring anything unforeseen, and due to reasons not entirely under his control, the newcomer is probably going to ride the bench much more than what people expected early in the season. Finding a use for him would be desirable, but at this point in time, it is probably not high on the team’s priority list.