On a few occasions, new Sixers head coach Nick Nurse has mentioned that he feels he's got “six starters.”
About that …
“Might be down to five, yeah,” Nurse said with a hearty laugh Tuesday.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Philadelphia sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
It does not sound like Nurse thinks James Harden will be on the floor when the Sixers open their regular season Thursday night against the Bucks in Milwaukee.
Harden, who requested a trade this summer, hasn’t practiced with the Sixers since Oct. 15 and didn’t play during the preseason. A team official said last week that Harden is away from the Sixers because of a personal matter.
“I did reach out to him the other day via text, like I would with anybody,” Nurse said Monday. “Just seeing how he’s doing, seeing if he’s all right, and he did text me back.”
Does Nurse have any sense of whether Harden wants to return to the Sixers?
NBA
“Didn’t get into any of that,” Nurse said. “I just was making sure that he was OK.”
The Sixers’ starters for their preseason finale win over the Hawks were Tyrese Maxey, De’Anthony Melton, Tobias Harris, PJ Tucker and Joel Embiid. Although that unit didn’t play much last year (180 possessions), it fared very well. The Sixers had a plus-17.2 net rating with that five-man group on the floor, according to Cleaning the Glass.
Nurse is less sure about how he should manage his bench. As he detailed Tuesday, there’s many factors to consider.
“I think there’s a couple of other areas,” he said. “Who’s playing in a game? How deep are we going in the rotation? And then that (also) means, who are you leaving out? I think we’re probably close to 12 guys that are good enough or have shown us enough to play in the rotation right now. Maybe even more, but 12 for sure.”
The Sixers used eight players off the bench in their last preseason game, including Javonte Smart for the final six minutes. So presumably, the five starters and seven bench players to check in before Smart comprise Nurse’s dozen. (Mo Bamba and Filip Petrušev seem firmly behind Paul Reed on the backup center depth chart.)
After a preseason in which he made 7 of 8 three-point tries, Jaden Springer remains an intriguing part of the rotation conversation.
“I would say he played his way into definite consideration, without a doubt,” Nurse said of the 21-year-old guard. “It’s a good complication; I treat it as a real positive. I think it gives us another hard-playing, defending guy that you can never have enough of, really. So it’s a good problem to have that we’ve got to figure out.”
And what about the wings?
While Danny Green and Kelly Oubre Jr. featured in every preseason game, Nurse has only seen 29 minutes of Danuel House Jr. and 19 minutes of Furkan Korkmaz. House and Korkmaz are now available, but both missed time with minor injuries and don’t appear to have solidified rotation spots.
Nurse suggested he’ll initially have some variation and flexibility in rotating his bench wings.
“Danny Green was a big question mark,” Nurse said. “Was he going to be healthy? Could he still get it done? I think he played very well, so that was another one that kind of came into the mix there. Kelly’s probably gotten the most run there, just maybe because of health. And what’s made it a little harder is the House and Furk (unavailability) this preseason, too.
“But I think in Furk’s one chance, he was very good. And House had some really good moments as well. So again, these guys have all proven they can step out there and help us in a certain way. It’s just going to be how we figure it out, how we do it night to night, or what the game calls for. Maybe in the middle of the game, the plan changes, too.”
Down to five starters and one more practice before the games begin.