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Sixerscan wrote:The Raptors won the series against us with 3 guys averaging over 9 ppg... if anything the Sixers were the more we’ll rounded scoring team in that series. Didn’t work out.

Most championship teams are pretty top heavy in terms of scoring with role players capable of playing defense. Acting like all of teams have had 7-8 capable scorers doesn’t really hold up.

The open question really is whether our top guys are good enough to score that much.

This. We're going to have 1 guy over 25 ppg (Embiid), another guy over 20 ppg (Harris), and two more guys between 15-20 ppg (Simmons and Richardson). Plus Horford between 10-15 ppg.

That is 90-95 ppg just from our starters. We only need 15-20 ppg in total from our bench to be at 110 ppg.

Due to rest days and such, call it 25-30 ppg from our bench needed.

Not a big deal at all.

Arsenal wrote:I foresee 3 main lineups, each for around 16 minutes per game:

Starting lineup:

PG Simmons
SG Richardson
SF Harris
PF Horford
CE Embiid

Simmons lineup

PG Smith
SG Richardson
SF Ennis
PF Simmons
CE Horford

Embiid lineup

PG Neto
SG Thybulle
SF Harris
PF Scott
CE Embiid

That way Harris can do some ball handling and P&R work. Maybe try and earn that contract. Also 4 out around Ben. Kyle O’Quinn likely gets some spot minutes too. Seems to me the closer they can keep Embiid and Horford to 28mpg during the regular season the better.

the_process wrote:

Arsenal wrote:I foresee 3 main lineups, each for around 16 minutes per game:

Starting lineup:

PG Simmons
SG Richardson
SF Harris
PF Horford
CE Embiid

Simmons lineup

PG Smith
SG Richardson
SF Ennis
PF Simmons
CE Horford

Embiid lineup

PG Neto
SG Thybulle
SF Harris
PF Scott
CE Embiid

That way Harris can do some ball handling and P&R work. Maybe try and earn that contract. Also 4 out around Ben.

It's 4 out around Ben except that none of the four are really above average three point shooters. But I guess it doesn't really matter. It's not like a defense really devotes more resources to defending a 40% three point shooter vs. a 35% three point shooter - either percentages are good enough that you won't just leave them unattended on the perimeter.

BullyKing wrote:

the_process wrote:

Arsenal wrote:I foresee 3 main lineups, each for around 16 minutes per game:

Starting lineup:

PG Simmons
SG Richardson
SF Harris
PF Horford
CE Embiid

Simmons lineup

PG Smith
SG Richardson
SF Ennis
PF Simmons
CE Horford

Embiid lineup

PG Neto
SG Thybulle
SF Harris
PF Scott
CE Embiid

That way Harris can do some ball handling and P&R work. Maybe try and earn that contract. Also 4 out around Ben.

It's 4 out around Ben except that none of the four are really above average three point shooters. But I guess it doesn't really matter. It's not like a defense really devotes more resources to defending a 40% three point shooter vs. a 35% three point shooter - either percentages are good enough that you won't just leave them unattended on the perimeter.

Exactly. All of them should hit enough to create a little gravity. And as long as defenders stay at home, Ben should be able to feast.

I understand your change, however I keep Harris on the Simmons unit. Otherwise that unit doesn't have a primary #1 option scorer.

Obviously Embiid is the primary scorer on the Embiid unit.

And another thing we have to consider is we just might have an elite defensive and rebounding team...so more often than not the bench may not even need to score big.

Personally I think we fixed the bench by signing Horford. He’s going to play a lot of minutes anchoring bench heavy lineups in the regular season and he will get them to a much less negative NetRTG.

They won’t be strong units on the basis of scoring, but on defense.

I’m not too concerned about it.

Feel good about Sixers making it out East but 2 concerns. 1. Who is our jimmy butler so to speak? Crunch time performer in the half court. 2. Bench scoring. I don’t think we did anything to improve the scoring off the bench from last year.

The Raptors weren't a good championship bet to make, but they had an acceptable amount of scoring depth.

Regular season per-36 scoring:
- Leonard: 28.2
- Ibaka: 19.9
- Siakam: 19.1
- Powell: 16.5
- Lowry: 15.1
- VanVleet: 14.1

Playoffs per-36 scoring:
- Leonard: 28.1
- Siakam: 18.4
- Ibaka: 16.2
- Powell: 14.8
- Lowry: 14.4

Let's be real though. They took advantage of a lot of illness and injuries to multiple players on their path to the title. Not to mention Kawhi mega-evolving.

One thing I think should be addressed about this team in terms of "feeling good" is that all five starters are inked with the team for the foreseeable future, which makes them bona fide "Philadelphia 76ers" instead of players who are on this team one year and then who knows what other team the next.

Almost all players want to win a championship. If you as a player feel that your chances of winning a championship during your NBA tenure are far more likely with one team than with another -- i.e., the team you're under contract with for the foreseeable future -- you're obviously likely to give more effort toward making that team great, rather than "taking the year off" so to speak and thinking about what other team you're going to try to win a championship with next year or the year after.

That's one thing Elton Brand has done here that's in fact genius. Embiid, Horford, Harris, Simmons (when he's extended), Richardson -- all are under contract for the foreseeable future, and at least four of the five are going to be long-term players with the team. That in itself creates a chemistry whereby that nucleus of players comes together and gives maximum effort to win a championship.

That isn't happening with teams that are putting temporary pieces together here and there and hoping it works out. This is a team that's going to gel, and gel very quickly in my opinion. They're going to get down to business on day one and come together in the effort to win a championship.

Read this article for a bit of what I'm talking about here:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27090540/tobias-harris-philadelphia-76er

Ferry Avenue wrote:One thing I think should be addressed about this team in terms of "feeling good" is that all five starters are inked with the team for the foreseeable future, which makes them bona fide "Philadelphia 76ers" instead of players who are on this team one year and then who knows what other team the next.

Almost all players want to win a championship. If you as a player feel that your chances of winning a championship during your NBA tenure are far more likely with one team than with another -- i.e., the team you're under contract with for the foreseeable future -- you're obviously likely to give more effort toward making that team great, rather than "taking the year off" so to speak and thinking about what other team you're going to try to win a championship with next year or the year after.

That's one thing Elton Brand has done here that's in fact genius. Embiid, Horford, Harris, Simmons (when he's extended), Richardson -- all are under contract for the foreseeable future, and at least four of the five are going to be long-term players with the team. That in itself creates a chemistry whereby that nucleus of players comes together and gives maximum effort to win a championship.

That isn't happening with teams that are putting temporary pieces together here and there and hoping it works out. This is a team that's going to gel, and gel very quickly in my opinion. They're going to get down to business on day one and come together in the effort to win a championship.

Read this article for a bit of what I'm talking about here:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27090540/tobias-harris-philadelphia-76er

They are all under contract but outside of Embiid and Simmons the rest could be moved after a year or two depending on Sixers FO patience. Tobias is no stranger of singing a deal then getting moved. Horford is 33. The window could be 1-2 seasons and depending on results? Things could change.

I like the direction the team has went this summer, they want to be known for their defense.

They will be a strong rebounding and defensive team. They will also be surprising good in transition. A lot of this teams success will be on both Joel and Ben, if they improve (Joel to MVP status and Ben to superstar status) they will have the best record in the league. And if neither one of them improve on their strongest weaknesses they could fall as low as the 3rd seed. Anything other than making the finals will be a huge disappointment considering KD will not be playing in the east this year.

The bench is improved as Scott and Ennis can now have an offseason and a full season to get acclimated. The addition of Neto will stretch the floor and not to mention the staggering of minutes between Joel and Al. The biggest issue of our bench in the playoffs was we had no back up bigs but that should no longer be an issue with the addition of Al.

This team will certainly struggle down the stretch of games on the offensive end but they should be able to make up for it with strong rebounding and defense.

This is a greatly constructed team with a superstar player and close to 4 all star level players in the starting 5. This team as constructed should certainly represent the east in the finals with HCA. Injuries will be something to keep an eye on because if healthy no team in the east is built to compete with these Sixers.

Kobblehead wrote:The Raptors weren't a good championship bet to make, but they had an acceptable amount of scoring depth.

Regular season per-36 scoring:
- Leonard: 28.2
- Ibaka: 19.9
- Siakam: 19.1
- Powell: 16.5
- Lowry: 15.1
- VanVleet: 14.1

Playoffs per-36 scoring:
- Leonard: 28.1
- Siakam: 18.4
- Ibaka: 16.2
- Powell: 14.8
- Lowry: 14.4

Let's be real though. They took advantage of a lot of illness and injuries to multiple players on their path to the title. Not to mention Kawhi mega-evolving.

The 2010 lakers had 2 guys over 14 points per 36 in the playoffs (well 3 if you count Sasha Vucicic who only played 10 games). The 2011 Mavs had 3.

I don’t think your theory that you need 7 scorers really holds up. There are a lot of top heavy champions, in fact I would say that’s the norm.

Arsenal wrote:

Sixerscan wrote:The Raptors won the series against us with 3 guys averaging over 9 ppg... if anything the Sixers were the more we’ll rounded scoring team in that series. Didn’t work out.

Most championship teams are pretty top heavy in terms of scoring with role players capable of playing defense. Acting like all of teams have had 7-8 capable scorers doesn’t really hold up.

The open question really is whether our top guys are good enough to score that much.

This. We're going to have 1 guy over 25 ppg (Embiid), another guy over 20 ppg (Harris), and two more guys between 15-20 ppg (Simmons and Richardson). Plus Horford between 10-15 ppg.

That is 90-95 ppg just from our starters. We only need 15-20 ppg in total from our bench to be at 110 ppg.

Due to rest days and such, call it 25-30 ppg from our bench needed.

Not a big deal at all.

While I agree with this that is shouldn't be a big deal, it HAS been a big deal in the playoffs. We don't even have so much as a Fred Van Vleet coming off of that bench and I consider him a basic role player. My personal hope is that Zhaire Smith can shoulder some of the scoring load for us. James Ennis can get you points too, Jonah Bolden might hit a three for you. Maybe Raul Neto surprises us, stays healthy and becomes a good backup point guard. I don't know.... I'm thinking primarily playoffs here because that is always ultimately what matters and our bench has struggled at times with that. We saw it with Golden State this year. They had more help than we did as far as reserves went and still struggled. I think the key is having players that can score and defend well coming off the bench. If Smith can give us anything beyond what is expected, and maybe Thybulle, Ennis, Bolden, and whoever else can scrape together enough points, we might be ok. It might actually be in Bretts best interest to turn Smith loose at times during the regular season to see what he can do. Give him the green light a little bit every now and then. Whatever helps his confidence....We're going to need him I think.

Sixerscan wrote:

Kobblehead wrote:The Raptors weren't a good championship bet to make, but they had an acceptable amount of scoring depth.

Regular season per-36 scoring:
- Leonard: 28.2
- Ibaka: 19.9
- Siakam: 19.1
- Powell: 16.5
- Lowry: 15.1
- VanVleet: 14.1

Playoffs per-36 scoring:
- Leonard: 28.1
- Siakam: 18.4
- Ibaka: 16.2
- Powell: 14.8
- Lowry: 14.4

Let's be real though. They took advantage of a lot of illness and injuries to multiple players on their path to the title. Not to mention Kawhi mega-evolving.

The 2010 lakers had 2 guys over 14 points per 36 in the playoffs (well 3 if you count Sasha Vucicic who only played 10 games). The 2011 Mavs had 3.

I don’t think your theory that you need 7 scorers really holds up. There are a lot of top heavy champions, in fact I would say that’s the norm.

That and a prime Kobe Bryant and a prime Dirk Nowitzki. I remember that both of them were absolutely outstanding those years. Both were the best of the best on the floor during their championship run. We'll definitely need that from either Simmons or Embiid as I think having the best player on the floor matters quite a bit unless it's 2004 Pistons. Point taken though, we have the role players, i'm a little concerned about the bench but that's to be determined.

ExplosionsInDaSky wrote:

Arsenal wrote:

Sixerscan wrote:The Raptors won the series against us with 3 guys averaging over 9 ppg... if anything the Sixers were the more we’ll rounded scoring team in that series. Didn’t work out.

Most championship teams are pretty top heavy in terms of scoring with role players capable of playing defense. Acting like all of teams have had 7-8 capable scorers doesn’t really hold up.

The open question really is whether our top guys are good enough to score that much.

This. We're going to have 1 guy over 25 ppg (Embiid), another guy over 20 ppg (Harris), and two more guys between 15-20 ppg (Simmons and Richardson). Plus Horford between 10-15 ppg.

That is 90-95 ppg just from our starters. We only need 15-20 ppg in total from our bench to be at 110 ppg.

Due to rest days and such, call it 25-30 ppg from our bench needed.

Not a big deal at all.

While I agree with this that is shouldn't be a big deal, it HAS been a big deal in the playoffs. We don't even have so much as a Fred Van Vleet coming off of that bench and I consider him a basic role player. My personal hope is that Zhaire Smith can shoulder some of the scoring load for us. James Ennis can get you points too, Jonah Bolden might hit a three for you. Maybe Raul Neto surprises us, stays healthy and becomes a good backup point guard. I don't know.... I'm thinking primarily playoffs here because that is always ultimately what matters and our bench has struggled at times with that. We saw it with Golden State this year. They had more help than we did as far as reserves went and still struggled. I think the key is having players that can score and defend well coming off the bench. If Smith can give us anything beyond what is expected, and maybe Thybulle, Ennis, Bolden, and whoever else can scrape together enough points, we might be ok. It might actually be in Bretts best interest to turn Smith loose at times during the regular season to see what he can do. Give him the green light a little bit every now and then. Whatever helps his confidence....We're going to need him I think.

The bigger problem for us was our defense bleeding points and allowing layup lines when Embiid sat. That issue should be resolved w/Horford here staggering minutes.

Scores get suppressed in the playoffs where the refs allow more physical defense in the post and clutching and grabbing on the perimeter.

Very few stars can keep their performance up in that situation, much less bench players. TOR bench was rendered almost useless at times against us too. The guy FVV everyone keeps talking about was made into a total nonfactor.

I mean, what if we just stuck Richardson on the bench and then put Thybulle in the starting lineup? Then no one would be complaining about our bench even though nothing has really changed.

ExplosionsInDaSky wrote:

Sixerscan wrote:

Kobblehead wrote:The Raptors weren't a good championship bet to make, but they had an acceptable amount of scoring depth.

Regular season per-36 scoring:
- Leonard: 28.2
- Ibaka: 19.9
- Siakam: 19.1
- Powell: 16.5
- Lowry: 15.1
- VanVleet: 14.1

Playoffs per-36 scoring:
- Leonard: 28.1
- Siakam: 18.4
- Ibaka: 16.2
- Powell: 14.8
- Lowry: 14.4

Let's be real though. They took advantage of a lot of illness and injuries to multiple players on their path to the title. Not to mention Kawhi mega-evolving.

The 2010 lakers had 2 guys over 14 points per 36 in the playoffs (well 3 if you count Sasha Vucicic who only played 10 games). The 2011 Mavs had 3.

I don’t think your theory that you need 7 scorers really holds up. There are a lot of top heavy champions, in fact I would say that’s the norm.

That and a prime Kobe Bryant and a prime Dirk Nowitzki. I remember that both of them were absolutely outstanding those years. Both were the best of the best on the floor during their championship run. We'll definitely need that from either Simmons or Embiid as I think having the best player on the floor matters quite a bit unless it's 2004 Pistons. Point taken though, we have the role players, i'm a little concerned about the bench but that's to be determined.

Joel Embiid is that guy. Right now he is a top 5-10 player.

When he graduates to MVP form, we're winning chips. Could very easily be next year.

Sixerscan wrote:
The 2010 lakers had 2 guys over 14 points per 36 in the playoffs (well 3 if you count Sasha Vucicic who only played 10 games). The 2011 Mavs had 3.

I don’t think your theory that you need 7 scorers really holds up. There are a lot of top heavy champions, in fact I would say that’s the norm.

The number of scorers that produce in the playoffs automatically shrinks because role players regress against defenders that try.

I arrived at that number by looking at our competition, not by seeing what worked in random seasons passed.

Get 7-8 players that can score in your rotation and you're set. That way, you have the scoring depth for load management without skipping a beat and you protect yourself against playoff regression from role players (Covington, Porter).

I think we just need another player capable of playing like 15 mpg at either the 1 or 2.

Sucks we missed out on Bradley, but I'd still be ecstatic if we landed Korver.

Simmons(34)/Richardson(14)
Richardson(20)/Korver(16)/Smith(12)
Harris(20)/Ennis(24)/Smith(4)
Horford(10)/Scott(24)/Harris(14)
Embiid(30)/Horford(18)

If not Korver, then maybe Burke or Holiday? We need someone because I don't think Shake and Thybulle are worthy rotation players (yet).

ExplosionsInDaSky wrote:

Sixerscan wrote:

Kobblehead wrote:The Raptors weren't a good championship bet to make, but they had an acceptable amount of scoring depth.

Regular season per-36 scoring:
- Leonard: 28.2
- Ibaka: 19.9
- Siakam: 19.1
- Powell: 16.5
- Lowry: 15.1
- VanVleet: 14.1

Playoffs per-36 scoring:
- Leonard: 28.1
- Siakam: 18.4
- Ibaka: 16.2
- Powell: 14.8
- Lowry: 14.4

Let's be real though. They took advantage of a lot of illness and injuries to multiple players on their path to the title. Not to mention Kawhi mega-evolving.

The 2010 lakers had 2 guys over 14 points per 36 in the playoffs (well 3 if you count Sasha Vucicic who only played 10 games). The 2011 Mavs had 3.

I don’t think your theory that you need 7 scorers really holds up. There are a lot of top heavy champions, in fact I would say that’s the norm.

That and a prime Kobe Bryant and a prime Dirk Nowitzki. I remember that both of them were absolutely outstanding those years. Both were the best of the best on the floor during their championship run. We'll definitely need that from either Simmons or Embiid as I think having the best player on the floor matters quite a bit unless it's 2004 Pistons. Point taken though, we have the role players, i'm a little concerned about the bench but that's to be determined.

Right, yeah, my point was just that it’s more about the top guys stepping up in the playoffs versus whether our 6th leading scorer is Mike Scott as opposed to Ersan or something.