CAMDEN, N.J. -- The Philadelphia 76ers are expected to be one of the top teams contending for a championship in the upcoming 2026-27 season after the aggressive offseason the team had in terms of bringing in proven champions such as Jaylen Brown and LeBron James.
The Sixers are also led by a championship-winning coach in Nick Nurse who led the Toronto Raptors to the franchise's only title in 2019. Nurse has proven to be a master strategist and has found a way to get the most out of his roster as he looks to get his team in position to win as much as possible.
Before the Sixers took the practice floor for training camp on Tuesday, Nurse gave a bit of a speech in terms of what kind of standard he wants the team to play up to every night.
"Not that
it's any big secret, but I always start the season with a kind of 30 minute kind of vision for the year," Nurse said succinctly. "We did that before we got on the floor, yep."
A championship standard is what the Sixers will strive for. This is a team that hasn't been able to have much playoff success in recent decades, but have arguably the most talented roster. However, talent won't matter if they don't play hard every night, work on getting everybody on the same page, and make sure everybody is being held to this same standard on a nightly basis.
Setting that tone in training camp is hugely important.
"Just setting the tone of what we expect as a team," added newcomer Anfernee Simons. "Just point out the expectations for us as a unit, what it's going to take for us to reach those expectations. It was a good meeting. Obviously, it gave us a little bit of motivation to go out there, come into practice, continue training camp throughout the season just to be ourselves. Hold each other accountable and get better each and every day."
Nurse is a coach who wants his players to play hard every night. To have a moment to speak to the team and make sure everybody understands how things will be run in the coming season is a big step forward for this group. That is what this team needs as everybody comes together to make a run at the title. Cohesion, chemistry, and this standard is going to be what propels them to success.
"To be honest, that was my first time doing that," added VJ Edgecombe. "So, I'm here for it. That's just setting the standard, laying down the principles and everything like that. And that's what's important, especially when you got a team full of guys that are really good, that have had successful careers. So that's really important. So my biggest takeaway is everything that happened in there, man. I'm super excited to go. It was great to get on the floor."
The Sixers open the preseason on Oct. 5 against the New York Knicks at home.
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: Nick Nurse, Sixers discuss setting the standard as training camp opens
