Just going to post to myself because I can't wait for the games to come back on.
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/7/14/21323572/nba-bucks-76ers-heat-eastern-conference-restart"This is the deepest team that Philadelphia has ever had in the Simmons and Embiid era."
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Philadelphia quietly added three solid rotation players in the month before the league suspended play. The team traded three second-round picks to Golden State for Alec Burks and Glenn Robinson III, and benefited from the unexpected rise of second-year guard Shake Milton after Ben Simmons went down with a back injury. Now coach Brett Brown has to figure out how all three fit around Simmons, who should be near 100 percent when the NBA resumes.
The first question is whether to move Al Horford back to the bench. Horford, Simmons, and Joel Embiid have not played well together this season. There’s just not enough space for all three to operate. Simmons and Embiid go from an offensive rating of 98.8 in 429 minutes with Horford to 110.0 in 360 minutes without him.
Benching Horford creates one spot in the starting lineup for Milton, Burks, or Robinson. Each brings something different. Milton, the best shooter, has the edge over Burks, the best playmaker, and Robinson, the best defender.
Milton’s emergence was one of the few bright spots in a disappointing season. A 2018 second-round pick from SMU who spent most of his rookie season in the G League, he averaged 12.8 points on 52.6 percent shooting, 3.1 assists, and 2.7 rebounds in his last 20 games with the 76ers, including scoring 39 points against the Clippers on March 1:
He will not keep shooting 51.2 percent from 3 like he did during that stretch, but there’s no reason to think his performance is a fluke. Milton was an elite shooter in college (career 42.7 percent from 3 on 5.1 attempts per game) with great size (6-foot-5 and 207 pounds with a 6-foot-11 wingspan) and the ability to create plays off the dribble and in the pick-and-roll. He’s a multidimensional offensive player who should be able to spot up off Simmons and relieve some of the playmaking pressure in the half-court.
The knock on Milton entering the league was that his subpar lateral quickness would prevent him from holding up on defense. But that should be less of an issue with all the great defenders around him in Philadelphia.
The 76ers didn’t know they would be getting so much from Milton when they traded for Burks and Robinson, but they can still help their new team. The former was averaging 16.1 points and 3.1 assists per game for the Warriors and provides some offensive punch off the bench. The latter is a low-maintenance 3-and-D wing who can defend three positions.
This is the deepest team that Philadelphia has ever had in the Simmons and Embiid era. While that’s a low bar to clear, making the jump from bad to average in your supporting cast is huge. The 76ers now have an elite defender (rookie Matisse Thybulle) and elite shooter (Furkan Korkmaz) as their ninth and 10th men. They will only go as far as their two polarizing stars will take them—but their role players will no longer be the ones holding them back.