CAMDEN, N.J. -- Coach Nick Nurse has one of the more talented rosters on his hands as he heads into his fourth season with the Philadelphia 76ers. After the front office was able to land the likes of Jaylen Brown and LeBron James to add to an already talented roster, Nurse and his staff must now figure out a way to make it all work.
One aspect Nurse will have to nail down is his rotation. While everybody can assume the starting lineup will include Brown, James, Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid, and VJ Edgecombe, there are a number of players on the second unit that can help this team right away. Nurse will have to figure out minutes and the rotation for everybody on the roster as they move forward.
"We put it on paper and it's like everything you got
things that'll kind of keep track of that for you to make this up and do all this stuff and total minutes at the end," Nurse said at camp. "Yeah, we've certainly done it. I think again, there's a lot more watching and experimenting and all that stuff that I always talk about to do, but if in the ideal world and everybody's there and stuff, I got a pretty good idea what that looks like at the beginning. I think it'll begin to take shape and change a little bit, probably change quite a bit, and then we always make the adjustments of who's available and all that stuff, too, so it’s something we'll look hard at this year for sure."
As far as the rotation is concerned, everybody can assume who will play the most, but as Nurse stated, it will depend on who's available on a night to night basis. When considering the fact that James will be 42 in December and that Embiid has a vast injury history, one has to wonder what the plan is with both players to get them ready for the challenges they will face in the playoffs.
"We'll have plenty of meetings and discussions about it," Nurse explained. "I think that now that we're kind of here, kind of lasering that down into what it's going to look like three to four weeks. What is the first back-to-back look like? That's kind of the start, and looking into the next month and the next month."
Obviously, Nurse has dealt with star players and injuries before and he ahs been able to win a title in that situation (see Leonard, Kawhi) and he will rely on that experience in this situation.
"I think I've told you guys this story a hundred times too, when we had Kawhi, we decided, let's not play back to backs until December first, and then we said let's go to Christmas, and then when that came we said let's go to All-Star break, and he never did the whole season," Nurse continued. "But it was more of a you kind of make a plan and you adjust according to which way the wind blows and go from there. Those are obviously important topics, and like you all and like our fans, you want those guys ready to go come April."
As far as the preseason is concerned, which opens on Monday against the New York Knicks, Nurse would like to see his starters play in these exhibition games.
"I think that usually we certainly want them to get out there and play," the coach explained. "I think that depending on, again, how guys are feeling leading into some of those games, also, kind of making kind of the greatest plans in the world that you want to get them all together. Let's say game two or something, and some of them can't go, and then you get really say, ‘OK, let's shift to the next one and all that, whatever.’ So, yeah, I mean, I think they'll all get out there."
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: Nick Nurse gives insight into rotation, preseason minutes for Sixers
