Sixers

What’s Eating at Richaun Holmes?

By Coggin Toboggan

Published: Mar 7th, 2018 · 1:01 PM EST

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Josh Lloyd, the lead fantasy basketball analyst of Basketball Monster and Locked on Fantasy, tweeted out an interesting nugget that could possibly have some future implications for the 76ers after their 128 to 114 victory over the lowly Charlotte Hornets:

Richaun Holmes just tweeted and immediately deleted before I could screen grab

"Fuck This Shit"

— Josh Lloyd (@redrock_bball) March 7, 2018

The alleged tweet came after Holmes only played three minutes (all in garbage time after the starters for both teams had been pulled) in the 76ers’ 35th victory of the season. If true, was Holmes finally displaying some displeasure with head coach Brett Brown’s decision to play Amir Johnson 13 minutes in relief of Joel Embiid?

To Johnson’s credit, he ended his run with seven points, five total rebounds, two assists, a steal and a +11 rating, not necessarily ineffective, but nothing mind blowing.

Its been a conundrum all season long for fans, as the majority have clamored for the younger, more athletic Holmes to gain minutes in relief of Embiid (or to even share the court with him), but Brown seems intent on dipping back into the Johnson well time and again. Both are averaging 15 minutes a game on the season (and 15.5 minutes over the last 10 games for Holmes compared with 15.6 minutes over the last 10 games for Johnson), but in the last two games Holmes has only seen the court for 7.5 minutes a game compared with nearly 14 minutes a game for Johnson.

Was Holmes annoyed by Brown’s decision to only play him in garbage time? Was he trying to post a tweet on a burner account (a solid theory posited by Russ in the CB Slack chat) and accidentally tweeted it out on his main account? Are we looking far too deeply into something that is most likely is nothing? Possibly.

Either way, it’s something to keep an eye on if its addressed by Holmes or the franchise today.