Nick Nurse suddenly has no shortage of buttons to push in Philadelphia.
The Sixers have rebuilt their roster around Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid, and VJ Edgecombe, then kept going. LeBron James and Jaylen Brown were added to the starting mix, while Dean Wade, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Anfernee Simons, and Ariel Hukporti brought more depth to the bench. Caleb Love also arrived on a two-way deal, giving the backcourt another layer of insurance.
That kind of overhaul has first-year president Mike Gansey talking like a man who knows exactly what his coach is staring at now. Gina Mizell of The Philly Inquirer reported that Gansey said Nurse is “a kid in a candy store” when it comes to sorting through possible lineups for the season ahead.
“ The vibes are high,” Gansey said. “ Everyone’s excited. Once we get together, I’m excited to see what the journey’s going to look like.”
For a team that had trouble finding reliable depth at times last season, the appeal is obvious: this group can be arranged in a lot of different ways. Adam Aaronson of The Philly Voice noted that the roster gives Philadelphia far more flexibility in the kind of units it can put on the floor.
Reserve big man Dominick Barlow echoed that point last week.
“ I think it’s exciting, just knowing that we have the versatility to play a bunch of different lineups and have guys that can play a bunch of different spots,” Barlow said. “ We might go really big depending on who we’re playing, or we might go really small. So I think just having variety is definitely a positive thing.”
Barlow is one of the players who could slide into a Maxey-Embiid group alongside Wade and Edgecombe, giving that five-man unit a blend of size and defensive versatility around the team’s top offensive weapons.
Aaronson also pointed to a James-Maxey-Simons-Wade-Adem Bona lineup as another interesting option, one that would pile shooting around James’ passing and still give both James and Maxey a lob threat near the rim. Philadelphia could also lean smaller with Maxey, Brown, Wade, James, and Barlow, or build combinations aimed at getting Brown and Edgecombe more involved with off-ball touches and a bigger workload.
The challenge, of course, is sorting through all the ball-dominant talent. Maxey, James, Embiid, and Brown are all used to having the offense flow through them. But each can also work without the ball, and if the buy-in is there, the Sixers should have enough lineup combinations to bring out different strengths from just about everyone on the roster.
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