October 11, 2016
Thanks to a little sleuthing, we perhaps got a preview on Instagram of Tuesday’s Sixers-Grizzlies matchup in Memphis:
The Grizzlies play the 76ers tomorrow. Joel Embiid left this comment on Chandler Parsons’ instagram. 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/j3iykgfwfA
— John Martin (@JohnMartin929) October 10, 2016
If Joel Embiid perhaps jumped the gun a bit there on social media, it wouldn’t have been the first time he did so on Monday. Earlier in the day, at the Sixers new practice facility in Camden, the rookie center claimed that he thought his minute restriction would be upped to 15 in Tennessee later tonight.
Not so fast, big fella. When Brett Brown addressed the media, he said that Embiid would still be limited to about 12 minutes of action against Memphis. By opening night, though, that number could double.
“We’re sort of playing it out,” Brown said. “The numbers that we’ve thrown around are 20-24 (minutes). And so that’s where it is at the moment. Stuff becomes fluid, though those numbers were discussed.”
Embiid has often talked about watching old school basketball players like Hakeem Olajuwon as a form of inspiration, but when asked back on media day to name any current player that he has paid attention to, Grizzlies center Marc Gasol was the first name that came up.
He’ll get his first chance to tangle with Gasol in the paint in tonight’s game.
“I follow his game, especially defensively,” Embiid said. “He’s really good. He’s long, big, tall. I kind of learned it when I was going through the rehab and stuff. And my gaining weight, one of the coaches gave me one of the stories of how he lost weight, so that kind of helped me. So I’ve been following him for a while.”
Just for reference, this was Marc Gasol in high school pic.twitter.com/F9nRvK7Xgq
— Lisa Kay (@LisaKay18) November 29, 2014
It says here that Gasol is an excellent player for Embiid to model his game after. The 31-year-old Spaniard is a smart, skilled big man who thinks the game better than almost 100 percent of NBA players while also possessing elite physical tools.
Dario Saric is generally pretty up front about the major transition he is making from European to American basketball. For example, in Europe there are generally two practices per day. Here, only one.
But it’s not simply a transition on the court for Saric. Apparently, he didn’t have to go to Ikea in Turkey.
“It’s totally different, apartments without furniture,” Saric said. “You have to rent or buy furniture, go in some shops. It’s part of normal human life, but in Europe, you got furniture, you got everything immediately in your apartment. It took me a lot of time.”
Saric, who is coming off a busy summer on the hardwood and battled some back soreness last week, is likely to sit out against Memphis in an effort to keep his workload down a bit.
“He goes hard,” Brown said. “When I watch him out here, he really is a prideful defender, a prideful worker. It’s just how he’s wired, he’s a pro.”
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
