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Rough Start for the Sixers Haters Who Said “There is Only One Basketball”
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One of the pre-mortem critiques conjured up by loathsome Sixers haters was that there is only one basketball. There simply will not be enough shots to go around to satisfy Jaylen Brown, Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid, LeBron James, and VJ Edgecombe, too. The egos will take over and the squad will fall apart.
Well, you can’t put together a more balanced distribution than what the Sixers did on Thursday night against the Cavs:
Maxey led the way with 23 shots. Brown took 20. Embiid had 16, LeBron 14, and VJ 11. Anfernee Simons took four shots off the bench and KCP hit a three. Adem Bona had a pair of attempts around the rim and Jabari Walker had a putback in his 4:26 of action.
The breakout among the starting five was similar vs. the Knicks on Tuesday night:
The pattern, early on, seems to be Maxey coming out assertive and letting fly. Brown has been a bit more methodical, coming on strong from the 2nd quarter on and getting downhill and attacking the rim. LeBron seems totally fine to live in that 10-15 FGA range and swing the ball around as facilitator, which is what we expected coming in. And Joel Embiid has arguably been doing his best work on the defensive end, altering shots and forcing stops and allowing the Sixers to get out and run in transition.
But Joel has his offensive moments, like we saw on Thursday night, where he goes right to work playing bully ball for easy buckets. He shows us glimpses of the dominant big who won MVP as a dynamic, multi-level scorer.
RE: Edgecombe, he’s taken 10.7 attempts per game over two games so far. He averaged 13.7 per game last year, and there’s nothing to worry about here. The Sixers have a back-to-back coming up this weekend. Embiid and LeBron will get their rest days. There are going to be plenty of outings in which he gets to have an elevated offensive role, and you can easily see him firing up 15-20 shots in those games.
These numbers will also dilute a bit when Nick Nurse expands the rotation and they start playing some of the NBA’s crappy teams. In two games against last year’s Eastern Conference finalists, he’s opted to play a glorified eight-man rotation while handing Walker some small ball minutes at the end of the second half. Dean Wade hasn’t even played yet, nor has rookie guard Labaron Philon Jr. Dominick Barlow will get some run soon enough. There will be games when Simons looks like Lou Williams, and fires up 12 shots off the bench, which will be perfectly fine.
There will be plenty to go around. This critique appears to be totally unfounded. Shocker!
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com