No Embiid-Okafor combo for Sixers - yet
Why didn't centers Joel Embiid and Jahlil Okafor share time on the floor Wednesday in the season-opening 103-97 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder?
Why didn't centers Joel Embiid and Jahlil Okafor share time on the floor Wednesday in the season-opening 103-97 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder?
That was a hot topic for 76ers coach Brett Brown during practice Thursday at the team's facility in Camden.
"It's not intelligent to play them together now when you only have X amount of minutes with both of them," Brown said.
The Sixers played Embiid for just 22 minutes, 25 seconds as a way to bring him along slowly after he missed the previous two seasons because of foot surgeries. Okafor played just 15:42 while overcoming a sore right knee. He had surgery in March to repair a meniscus tear in his knee that cost him the final 23 games of last season.
However, Embiid and Okafor are eager to play together in what would be the Sixers' latest version of the Twin Towers.
"I think they understand that I, too, want to play those two guys together," Brown said. "I can't wait to play those two guys together. But when somebody gives you the frugal budget that I've been given, it's just not smart to spend all of your money now."
That would leave third-string center Richaun Holmes left to play the majority of the minutes. Once their minutes increase, the Sixers will experiment with the Twin Towers.
Options picked up
The Sixers exercised team options on Embiid, Okafor, and Nik Stauskas on Wednesday. The move keeps the three players under contract through the 2017-18 season.
Embiid is slotted to make $6.1 million that season because he was the third overall pick by the Sixers in the 2014 NBA draft. Stauskas, who was picked eighth in that draft by the Sacramento Kings, will make $3.8 million. The Sixers acquired him in a July 2015 trade. Okafor is slotted to receive $4.9 million. He was the third pick of the 2015 draft.
Not another loss
The season-opening setback will go down as the 200th loss of Brown's tenure as the Sixers' coach.
But this one felt different.
"You sting because ultimately we lost the game," Brown said.
However, the coach can point to the fact that Embiid and Dario Saric were not around for those previous 199 defeats over the last three seasons. Nor did those Sixers squads have the luxury of knowing a first-overall pick in Ben Simmons would join the team in three months.
Instead, they had a surplus of fringe players for those three seasons.
"We have gone through 52 players," Brown said. "Count them, 52 players that I've put on the floor. Only [23] are still in the league. We've gone through 14 point guards. Count them, 14."
Now, Brown said he can walk into a locker room and see keepers. So even though Wednesday appeared to be just another loss, Brown believes it was far from that.
"I am seeing something that has a chance to grow, that we can all wrap our arms around," Brown said. "And on opening night, to do some of the things that we did with [Embiid and Saric], it does feel a little bit different on opening night."
@PompeyOnSixers