One of the most exciting elements of the Sixers’ hot start that’s seen them vault up the Eastern Conference standings has been the fact that they’ve done so shorthanded. Joel Embiid has been on a fairly tight minutes limit, Jared McCain has hardly seen the floor at all, and Paul George has yet to suit up for a game this season.
No one gave much thought when perusing the injury report that Trendon Watford, signed from the Brooklyn Nets over the summer, had missed all of preseason and the first three
games of the regular season with a hamstring injury.
Watford also had to slow roll his start of the season, playing only 20-25 minutes per game to get his legs under him. Despite that, and despite the crucial part of team building he missed before the season, Watford has hit the ground running so far for the Sixers.
After a pair of 16-point performances, Watford was rewarded by the coaching staff by taking the starting power forward spot — a spot in the lineup that’s been in flux between Dominick Barlow and Jabari Walker.
Watford did his best to take hold of it though. In his first start, he had his first career triple-double, dropping 20 points, 17 rebounds and 10 assists in a 130-120 win over the Toronto Raptors.
“He’s kind of what you call a hooper,” head coach Nick Nurse said about him after that game.
Watford’s blend of ball-handling and passing for a 6-foot-9 big is what made him enticing to this Sixers team, and he’s made that stand out since he’s gotten on the floor.
“He really knows how to play and he can do a lot of different things that we talked about but his instincts are just so good,” Nurse said.
Watford was heavily recruited over the summer by his friend Tyrese Maxey despite never playing together before the Sixers. The two have been friends going back to high school. Nurse has also said he asked Daryl Morey to acquire Watford several times during his tenure.
He credits his prior relationship with Maxey, but also the work he put in getting to know the team over the summer with helping him acclimate despite the preseason time he missed.
“It’s made it easier, my relationship with him, my relationship with all the guys,” Watford said. “We’re pretty tight, [a] pretty close knit group and we all get along with each other, so it makes it easy. We all brothers, we got each other’s back.”
Despite being such a newcomer, Watford is already someone telling guys where they need to be. He’s always been a vocal player, whether he’s available or not.
“Even though I was out in training camp and preseason, I was still using my voice and still being me, so that sort of made the transition easier,“ he said.
The communication and the bond between teammates are both part of the new standard the Sixers are trying to set for themselves after last season.
“When you have the friendship and the bond off the court it carries over on the court,” Maxey said. ”When you’re on the court, and a screen is coming, your brother don’t want you to get hit, so he’s gonna make sure that he has your back.”
Maxey credits that mentality on nights such as that Raptors win, when the Sixers’ offense looks diverse and they have several double-digit scorers.
“Sharing the ball, wanting to see each other succeed. That’s the biggest thing right now, guys are playing for each other,” he said.
Watford’s ability to share the ball has always stood out for a guy at his position. The last two years, he ranked in the 92nd and 93rd percentile respectively for assist rate at his position, according to Cleaning the Glass.
“I think the biggest thing is T-Wat can bring [the ball up] as well,” Nurse said, “but he’s also a good post-feeder, right? So we can play some stuff through him.”
After starting his career with the Portland Trail Blazers and Brooklyn Nets, two teams in complete rebuilds that weren’t necessarily trying to win games, Watford has found that part of his game coming to him much more frequently.
“I’ve been doing it, really just been making plays for myself and others, but having this amount of talent around me makes it easier,” he said. “Having one of the best guards in the league, obviously a former MVP with [Joel Embiid]. And you know everybody else, with [Quentin Grimes], with Kelly [Oubre Jr.], with VJ [Edgecombe]. Honestly, man, it makes my job easy just being able to get them involved and they knock down the shot and knock down the layup, but I’ve been doing it and just keep going.”
