September 28, 2016
Rich Hofmann/PhillyVoice
At Sixers Camp, Ben Simmons works on his free throws while Joel Embiid chats with coaches.
The Sixers were back at it on Wednesday afternoon at Stockton University in Galloway Township, New Jersey for the second day of the team’s training camp. We’ll have a longer story focused on Dario Saric later today, but here is some of what we learned from Day 2:
• I mentioned in yesterday’s notes that you probably shouldn’t read too much into the lineups, and that is because Brett Brown is playing mad scientist and experimenting with different looks.
Today, the tail end of practice saw an extremely big “white” team (Jerryd Bayless, Robert Covington, Saric, Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid) go up against a more conventional “blue” team (Sergio Rodriguez, Nik Stauskas, Hollis Thompson, Richaun Holmes, and Nerlens Noel). Just in case we’re not clear, white and blue are the jersey colors.
“There is a lot of moving parts,” Brown said. “You guys are going to come into a gym and you’re going to look out on a court and see a bunch of different looks, blue and white. That’s part of my job, that’s part of what I got to get done before opening night.”
Is tomorrow the day we get to see the comically big Simmons-Saric-Okafor-Noel-Embiid lineup that is generally only reserved for 2K? You’re just going to have to stay tuned to find out.
• If you’re a regular reader, that white team is my most intriguing lineup with the exception of Covington playing the 2 instead of Gerald Henderson (which is essentially the same thing). We only got to check out a few minutes, but that group got beat pretty soundly by the blue team in what I saw. So much for intrigue!
Rodriguez, who we knew coming into the season is extremely adept at running pick-and-roll, was the best player on the floor during that span:
• Oh yeah, we got to see Joel Embiid play basketball. That’s cool. Brown went out of his way to say that Embiid was impressive, but the 7’2” center struggled in the little I saw:
Embiid stripped on dunk attempt, turns ball over. #Sixers pic.twitter.com/JCgxSPrDeT
— Tom Moore (@tmoore76ers) September 28, 2016
To be clear, Brown watched the whole practice, for which Embiid was a full participant. The Sixers tweeted out this, too. But from what I saw, the 7’2” center appeared rusty. After missing over two full years of hoops, that’s understandable.
For what it’s worth, Embiid agreed with the assessment.
“Everything is kind of off right now as far as catching the ball or shooting and everything,” Embiid said. “So I still got to get in the flow of the game. That’s what I was telling the coach yesterday. We’d be playing pick-up, and yesterday when I kind of played with them [in practice], it was a little bit fast. So I told them that the speed of the game, that’s something I going to have to adjust to.”
• See the picture above? That is how Brown decided to wrap up today, with a film session following the final scrimmage. After practice, the Sixers head coach described how one of the main focuses of this camp is late-game situations.
Brown wants his team thinking about executing down the stretch (“on the seesaw,” in Marc Zumoff’s words). In the scrimmages we observe, the score is generally in the 90s with the fourth-quarter clock winding down.
“My mindset is to reverse engineer this where we’re going to teach them and show them how to win games when the score is close and the situation warrants it,” Brown said. “I will go backwards until we play Oklahoma City where we’re coming in hard, we’re coming in early on scenarios, situations and practicing them. And talking to [players], and showing them on tape where we can be in a position to win close games.”
I just hope Brown goes easy on the film of the Sixers’ late-game “execution” last year, too much of which can be hazardous for your health.
• This was a funny moment during the scrimmage:
Nerlens Noel goes to the line and Joel Embiid yells, "He's gonna miss both! He can't shoot!"
— Rich Hofmann (@rich_hofmann) September 28, 2016
And for the record, I believe (but am not 100 percent certain) Noel went 1-for-2 on that particular trip.
• There was one Sixer on today’s injury report, and believe it or not, it wasn’t Embiid: Jahlil Okafor has right knee soreness, so he practiced for a portion of today’s session and then worked out individually with strength coach Todd Wright.
While their injury histories are very different, it's becoming clearer that Okafor will be monitored by the Sixers in a similar fashion to Embiid. After practice, Okafor said that the Sixers always planned on treating him cautiously after he underwent surgery on that same right knee last March.
When asked, Okafor maintained that he is healthy.
“Our medical team, the doctors, they had me focus on low management so they told me just to relax once I did what they wanted me to do today,” Okafor said. “Just watched from the sideline and did an individual workout with our strength trainer. But I feel fine, I’ll be good tomorrow.”
• Parking Wars, Day 2: Within just a couple of minutes of arriving, a Stockton student was nice enough to point me in the direction of her parking spot in the packed lot in front of the gym, which she luckily happened to be leaving. Trust The Process, folks.
• After three practice sessions in two days, the Sixers are off tonight. For the four-day training camp, the routine for practices is 2-1-2-1. Brown said that the team will listen to a guest speaker, Commander Mark McGinnis, a former Navy SEAL who also spoke to the team two years ago.
Brown came away very impressed with McGinnis last time he spoke in front of the Sixers.
“If you look at the world that he’s lived in, which is real-time stuff, real world stuff, war, along with the stories and experiences he’s had, pointed toward what we’re trying to get done as a team, then the messaging is strong,” Brown said. “It’s powerful and it’s very timely with our new team.”
We’ll be back at Stockton for tomorrow’s morning session, Day 3 of training camp.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
