With the addition of point guard Trey Burke, the Sixers’ 15-man roster is set.

As of July 26th, we’ve got a depth chart that looks something like this:

  • point guard: Ben Simmons —-> Raul Neto/Trey Burke/Shake Milton (should be a competition for this backup spot)
  • shooting guard: Josh Richardson —-> Zhaire Smith/Furkan Korkmaz
  • small forward: Tobias Harris —-> James Ennis/Matisse Thybulle/(Korkmaz)
  • power forward: Al Horford —-> (Harris)/Mike Scott/Jonah Bolden
  • center: Joel Embiid —-> (Horford)/Kyle O’Quinn

Obviously some of those guys will move around to different spots on the floor. Tobias Harris will play some power forward when Horford is at center. Thybulle and Korkmaz can play the two or the three depending on what personnel grouping you’ve got out there.

Beyond that, you’re looking at Norvel Pelle and Marial Shayok on the two-way contracts, with Christ Koumadje inevitably on his way to the Blue Coats following training camp. I thought the Sixers might keep that 15th spot open, but they can always waive one of the minimum guys to make room, or trade a piece like Bolden.

But it’s a solid group, and it looks like this team has depth that last year’s squad really just did not have, especially in instances when Joel Embiid was off the floor. Now Brett Brown has two legit bigs behind Embiid and can still play with a small-ball five if necessary. I still wonder about bench shooting and there are certainly going to be some moments where the Sixers find themselves out of sync on the offensive end, but it’s a massive roster in terms of height and there’s no reason why this team can’t finish top-five in both defense and rebounding.

With Jimmy Butler and T.J. McConnell gone, I think backup ball handler is probably the most interesting position battle on the squad. Burke and Neto will compete for that spot in camp while I think Shake Milton could benefit from some more time in Delaware.

Regarding Burke, he can definitely score. He came off the bench 50 times last year for New York and Dallas, played about 19 minutes a game, and averaged 10.9 points and 2.7 assists. His three-point shooting has improved since entering the league (35.2% last year) and he’s a career 44% shooter from 16 feet extending out to the arc. The thing about Burke is that he’s more of an iso scorer, which is interesting, because that doesn’t necessarily fit into Brett Brown’s motion offense, but it’s certainly a change of pace the team can turn to if things are getting stagnant. He can definitely create his own shot, which is something few Sixers have been able to do with success in recent years.

Neto is less of a scorer and is more likely to facilitate, to move the ball and run the offense. And while he doesn’t shoot as frequently as Burke does, his career field goal and three point numbers are better, as you can see here via Basketball Reference:

So Burke has the tendency to go off. On a random night, he’ll get hot and drop 25 points, then follow it up with a 2-7 or 2-8 shooting night. There’s a lot more variance in his game, a high ceiling and low floor, if that makes sense.

Here’s a clip that shows the high ceiling, and I imagine we don’t need to see what the low floor looks like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUsgvMi5Lxw