October 05, 2026
Colleen Claggett/for PhillyVoice
How much of LeBron James will Sixers fans see this preseason?
Before every game starts to matter, the Sixers will play four games that – at least when it comes to wins and losses – are totally meaningless.
On Monday night, the Sixers' preseason slate begins at Xfinity Mobile Arena. The New York Knicks will be in town, and even if both the Sixers and the defending champions hold out many key players, the two perceived favorites to win the Eastern Conference will be kickstarting their preparation for a season they will begin against each other at Madison Square Garden in 15 days.
Over the last week – across Media Day, five days of training camp and the Blue x White Scrimmage – the new-look Sixers have been getting out ahead of it: despite all of their star power, this is going to take time.
"[I]t's not going to be easy. I don't expect it to be," Jaylen Brown said on Thursday. "How I manage external pressure or expectations is just through work: being the last guy to leave the gym, get enough extra shots, get enough extra reps, just to make sure I'm thinking and seeing through everything, asking questions, not being afraid to ask questions, but just staying calm, cool, and collected. Don't panic. Things may happen; we might have adversity like everybody else, but it's a long journey. Injuries, or things don't go according to plan right away, it's okay. So just don't panic. Stay calm, cool, and collected, and how you respond is everything. I've gained a lot of wisdom being in this league for a long time, and I plan on gaining even more from this group that we have."
How many times will Brown, LeBron James and the rest of this team's starters see the court during preseason? In this week's 5 Sixers thoughts, diving into the key questions set to be answered over the next two weeks:
"We certainly want them to get out there and play," Nurse said on Wednesday, also mentioning that the Sixers will confer with their key players before making any decisions. "...I think they'll all get out there, and I would say, kind of like we've done in the past, the guys that are available would play a bit in the first half. The second half, probably looking at the other guys and all that stuff. But as we get closer to the end, we want to get some time out there together, for sure."
The Sixers will be as diligent as possible about managing their key players' workloads – specifically those of James and Joel Embiid. Every minute from now until the end of the season will add up. And it speaks to the ultimate conundrum the Sixers will face all year long: their desire to build as much continuity within a new-look group and their goal to reach the playoffs healthy create competing mindsets.
Should the Sixers go full-throttle? Should they have a more lax approach? Surely, the correct answer will be somewhere in the middle. How frequently the starters play in preseason action will be the first indication of how the team plans to strike that balance over the course of the year.
MORE: Nurse thinks starters will play in preseason; Maxey, Dean Wade talk first practices
If the Sixers do get a look or two at their full starting lineup, Nurse could perhaps execute unusual five-man substitutions during those exhibition contests to ensure that the five-man unit of Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, Brown, James and Embiid maximizes its time on the floor together. But that would come at the expense of those players building more chemistry with key reserves, a meaningful sacrifice given this team's expected reliance on staggering.
"Yeah, we've certainly done it," Nurse said when asked if he had thought about the right way to stagger his starters. "I think again, there's a lot more watching and experimenting and all that stuff that I always talk about to do, but if in the ideal world and everybody's there and stuff, I've got a pretty good idea what that looks like at the beginning. I think it'll begin to take shape and change a little bit, probably change quite a bit, and then we always make the adjustments of who's available and all that stuff, too, so it’s something we'll look hard at this year for sure."
A foot sprain rendered Adem Bona unavailable to practice during training camp. That created an opportunity for free-agency acquisition Ariel Hukporti, with only 715 NBA minutes under his belt across two seasons with the New York Knicks, to impress.
"Huk has been athletic, long, plays really hard," Nurse said. "Awesome to see."
Hukporti and Bona are the primary contenders to be Embiid's lead backup, and it is nothing new. They have been battling each other since they were 14 years old, Hukporti said, dating back to early international competition.
"He played for Turkey. It was my team, I had Franz Wagner. It was me, Franz, I think that’s it. And then he had Sengun and himself, obviously," Hukporti said. "We were just battling all the time. In Europe, Germany-Turkey, we got some kind of rivalry going on. Yeah, we’ve been playing for a long time. So it’s been good seeing him now, seeing him in the league. Last year, we had our battles, too, and now we’re on the same team. So it’s been nothing but a blessing."
Another option behind Embiid: going smaller. James and Dean Wade can slide up to the five in a pinch, but that look may be better saved for later in the year. Nurse's primary small-ball center options are Dominick Barlow and Jabari Walker. Barlow put on muscle over the summer – "Don't like being in pain, so I decided to lift a little bit," he quipped at Media Day – and if that added strength translates to improved defensive rebounding, he could even be a better option than Bona and Hukporti. Walker has the strength and rebounding ability Barlow has yet to establish, but much less offensive utility and defensive versatility.
Every now and then, an unexpected player uses preseason as a launching point to something bigger. A year ago, Barlow dominated in the early weeks of October, and it earned him a start on opening night as a two-way player. He went on to start 59 games and earn a standard contract in February.
The Sixers, after a few years of extremely ineffective uses of back-end roster spots, have quite a bit of depth in the final third of their roster now. Walker, also a rotation mainstay as a two-way player, may be 14th in the overall pecking order. That is a remarkable testament to the sheer volume of playable bodies at Nurse's disposal.
Will Walker, whose Media Day press conference included confident remarks about his movement and shooting, show that he is a valuable piece of a team that could struggle on the defensive glass? Veteran guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is a well-known commodity at this point, but he is coming off two difficult seasons during which he was not in ideal contexts. How will he respond to this situation? Caldwell-Pope has already become a guiding presence for third-year wing Justin Edwards, long a favorite of Nurse's. As long as Edwards is playing for Nurse, he has a chance of breaking through.
MORE: LeBron at Media Day: 'I didn't leave my family to lose in the second round'
Another player with a chance to grab one of Nurse's final rotations spots is rookie Labaron Philon Jr., whose two-way play was one of the most discussed topics during last week's training camp.
"I talked about his compete level and his effort. His physicality has been good. I think that’s been excellent," Nurse said. "What's showing more is his ability to run an offense. Like, really takes command of getting people where they need to be, making a decisive play call or whatever it is and getting it executed and also he’s got a bit of a – when things are getting a little haywire, he’s got a little bit of an ability to break away and get some space and get into the paint and then create the offense that way.”
Philon must find ways to impact winning without the ball to stick in this rotation, but his passing would be his separating factor on a team without many high-level playmakers.
"I would say I’ve always been a great passer," Philon said. "Just having the right guys and the right plays and the right mindset. I feel like, first, you’ve got to be unselfish. Second, you’ve got to have guys that want to move on the floor. And third, it just comes down to making the best decision. I would feel like, for me, the best decision is making the easiest play. Right now, I don’t really need no ‘showtime’ or flashy plays. The position I’m in right now, it’s like making the right play every time. It’ll be great for me, and I’ve been doing that, just seeing that has been good."
The Sixers have a slew of Exhibit 10 contract signees – Tacko Fall, Jameer Nelson Jr., Saint Thomas, Duke Miles and Dillon Jones – competing for the team's vacant two-way spot. By the time the season starts, somebody will be joining Caleb Love and Rayan Rupert as this team's two-way players.
However, part of the Sixers' strategy in leaving the spot up for grabs into October – as a source outlined to PhillyVoice in August – was that they could end up signing a player let go by another NBA team. So, the aforementioned five players are competing with each other, but they are also competing with the rest of the players on the fringes of NBA rosters.
The logical positional fit for the Sixers' third two-way player would be a center, and that could benefit the 7-foot-6 Fall. But he suffered a hip injury a few days into training camp which will sideline him for at least two weeks.
The most accomplished player of the group is Jones, a veteran of 591 NBA minutes across two seasons. Jones, a former first-round pick of Oklahoma City's esteemed front office, was part of the title-winning Thunder two seasons ago. He found himself in free agency last January, eventually landing with the Knicks on a two-way deal.
Two seasons, two championship rings for Jones. Perhaps the Sixers should give him their final two-way spot as a scientific experiment.
MORE: Star-studded starting lineup unveiled at Media Day
