The Philadelphia 76ers have gotten off to a pretty slow start this season. Currently in possession of the second-worst record in the entire association, injuries have hampered them in the early going, erecting a pretty tall task ahead of them in their quest to make a lot of noise in the playoffs.
Thankfully, the 76ers are slowly rounding to form, at least health-wise. Paul George is starting to reclaim his rhythm after a slow start, Joel Embiid is finally playing after a lentghy and controversial layoff, and Tyrese Maxey should be back in no time.
In addition, the team’s injuries have forced players to step up, yielding some nice revelations for the 76ers despite their very slow start. Obviously, the tools are there for the team to start catching up to their counterparts and live up to their billing as a powerhouse.
Concerning trend has 76ers repeating the same mistake
Despite all these, a lot of people have not been so pleased with head coach Nick Nurse. While blaming him entirely would be quite the misguided train of thought, his trademark shrewdness has not been on display at this juncture.
One of the biggest gripes about his so far has been his belated adjustments to the rotation. While he’s already started to give the likes of Jared McCain and Guerschon Yabusele more run, some others like Ricky Council IV have yet to sniff the court purposively.
Instead, he’s still clinging to unplayable veterans like Eric Gordon, whose age is showing badly this season. Heading into the campaign, Council was even perceived to challenge his veteran counterparts for the starting shooting guard role, but at this point, that has become an overblown proposition.
At this rate, the 76ers are wasting the young talent they can nurture not only for the present, but also for the immediate future. Remember Isaiah Joe? Julian Champagnie? Philly has not been very thorough and patient with developing potential contributors. They cannot afford to do the same with Council IV, who has already shown a lot of promise traceable to last season.
The Philadelphia 76ers have and will continue to have one of the most expensive rosters in the NBA. And the best way to minimize what they have to conceive to maintain their current configuration is to find and preserve young contributors whom they can have for cheap moving forward.
Hopefully, the coaching staff gets to be more proactive in designing a more sustainable way to build the roster.