In a big-picture sense, the Sixers added four role players, resolved some awkwardness and expanded president of basketball operations Daryl Morey’s future options through trading James Harden to the Clippers.
Head coach Nick Nurse needs to care about the details, though.
For instance, PJ Tucker is now with Harden in Los Angeles after starting the Sixers’ first three games. Kelly Oubre Jr. will slide into that spot when the Sixers host the Raptors on Thursday night, according to Nurse.
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“We’ll bump Kelly into there, I think, for the short term,” Nurse said following the Sixers’ practice Wednesday. “I think that I certainly love what he brings off the bench as an explosive scorer, so I don’t know how that’ll end up in the long term or the mid term. But in the short term, it’ll be him tomorrow night.”
All of the new Sixers — Robert Covington, Nicolas Batum, KJ Martin and Marcus Morris Sr. — were present at practice and watched the session.
Nurse’s initial thought was that debuts wouldn’t be on the table Thursday, although he was unsure. Batum (personal reasons) was the only player among the four officially listed as out for the Toronto game. The Sixers will play the Suns next on Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia.
“You never know,” Nurse said. “If they’re available, obviously we’ll dress them (against the Raptors) and see what’s going on, but I would imagine we’re going with the guys that are currently locked in right now. Tomorrow’s probably a little too soon to get them integrated, but you never know.”
NBA
Once everyone’s settled in, how will all the pieces best fit?
While Nurse can’t possibly have a precise answer for a while, he likes that the former Clippers are relatively versatile and, outside of the 22-year-old Martin, high on NBA experience.
“The group as a whole — three of the four, anyway — have played considerable minutes in the NBA,” he said. “That’s a good start. And three of the four also have a shooting component to their game. … It’s always important, when you’ve got somebody like Joel (Embiid), that you’ve got guys that can space. And they’re guys that have taken shots in the bright lights and made ‘em. That’s important.
“And I do like KJ, too. He’s a young, explosive athlete. Pretty good player who’s kind of on the rise pretty quickly, I think. He’s just starting to figure out what he can do in games and all that stuff. … There’s certainly some versatility there. They’re all kind of the same position, which is kind of multiple wing, two, three, four type of guys. So we’ve got some flexibility there and some depth, I think.”
It’s safe to assume Nurse isn’t the only Sixers coach who feels Martin has significant potential to improve.
The 6-foot-6 forward has trained with Sixers assistant coach Rico Hines since his high school days.
“He had an unbelievable basketball imagination,” Hines told The Houston Chronicle’s Danielle Lerner last December. “Any time you showed him something one time, he picked it up. And the best thing about it was when we worked out, we played in our runs and he got the chance to play against Pascal Siakam, James Harden, you name it, every day as a senior in high school. … The way he picked things up was high level, one of the best I’ve ever been around.”
Much of Martin’s offensive production has come at the rim. He’s known as a strong cutter and a fierce, frequent dunker.
Time on the court alongside Embiid should coincide with open jumpers, too. After making 36.0 percent of his three-pointers over his first two NBA seasons with the Rockets, Martin dropped to 31.5 percent last year.
“Just working on my shot,” he said when asked about next steps in his development. “I feel like I’ve taken a step forward in it, but staying super consistent. And also ball handling and stuff like that. But I understand guys on my team and what their strengths are … how to just play around them, help them get open and just use my athleticism.”
Nurse will soon learn more about Martin’s game. As usual, he indicated Wednesday that he’s open to experimentation across the board.
That may very well mean small-ball center minutes for players like Batum, Covington and Morris who have previously done that job.
“I would say we’ll experiment with just about everything — just in general,” Nurse said. “My staff keeps telling me a lot about Batum at the five, so I guess I probably need to look at that a little bit more and see what it looks like with us. But I think it’s great.
“Again, I love versatility in general and being able to plug guys in there. … I like to play my best players and figure it out. So if there’s a guy that’s our best player, we’ve got to figure it out positionally sometimes.”