Yeah, we knew this more than a week ago, but I wanted to share a couple of quotes from the press releases that went out this morning.

Here’s Brett Brown on Muscala, who comes to Philly via a three team trade that sends Justin Anderson to Atlanta and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot to Oklahoma City:

“Mike Muscala joins our program at a fantastic stage of his career. He has enjoyed some NBA success and his upside in the future is extremely bright,” Brown said. “We will use him both as a backup five and, at times, a power forward. His ability to shoot the ball and the energy with which he plays will help our basketball team.”

And Brett’s quote on Jonah Bolden, who Shams say signed a four year, $7 million rookie deal:

“We have been following Jonah Bolden for a while and are very excited to bring him into our program as a young, up-and-coming prospect,” Brown said. “He experienced positive growth and development last season at Maccabi Tel Aviv, a team led by Neven Spahija, who is a friend of our program and an excellent coach. Jonah’s style of play is that of a modern-day player and we’re thrilled to grow our team with him.”

Muscala I think needs to play more four than five, unless the Sixers know something that you and I don’t. If you want to overreact to those quotes, you could focus on Brown saying, “…at times, a power forward.” I think it needs to be more than “at times,” I think Muscala needs to be at power forward most of the time.

Why?

Well, here’s what the center depth chart currently looks like:

  1. Joel Embiid
  2. Amir Johnson
  3. Muscala/Bolden

And power forward:

  1. Dario Saric
  2. Muscala/Bolden
  3. (Covington/Simmons/Chandler when necessary)

Seems like it just makes more sense for Bolden, a rookie, to play third-fiddle behind Johnson and Embiid while Muscala backs up Dario at the #4. Then you can roll out a Muscala/Dario small ball look and also bump Simmons or Covington down to power forward in specific situations.

Does Brown see Bolden as a 4 or 5 in the NBA? We’ll find out soon enough.

Maybe I’m just hallucinating here, but it feels like the Sixers value Bolden a bit more than most of the fan base does at this point.