Korkmaz feels he hasn’t been given ‘real opportunity’

good rotation minutes for me. That’s why I feel I didn’t get that real opportunity to show on the court what I’ve got.”

Korkmaz, 21, was a firstround Sixers choice in the 2016, No. 26 overall. After an additional season of playing professionally in Turkey, the 6-foot-7 wing was brought to the Sixers with some acclaim, touted as another critical piece in their rebuilding process. A broken foot limited his rookie season to 14 games, and he averaged just 1.6 points.

Though he had a 40-point game against the Celtics the last summer league, generating heightened enthusiasm, Korkmaz has been trapped deep in a playing rotation behind, among others, J.J. Redick, Markelle Fultz and even rookie Landry Shamet.

He had played in five games this season, averaging 0.8 points. That was not enough for the Sixers to pay a required $2.03 million for next season. They could, though, move Korkmaz in trade, something he would welcome.

“I just want to play,” he said. “I just want to get on the court. That’s why I will try to see what my options are right now. If I am not getting minutes here, I just want to look for other options. I don’t know what the other options are at this point.”

The Sixers did pick up their options on Markelle Fultz, Ben Simmons and Dario Saric before the Oct. 31 deadline.

••• Not that Saric hasn’t had slow starts in his career, including last year, but the Sixers have been concerned enough about his diminished production this year that they have considered resting him for a game.

“If we had a high volume of practices, would I rest him? Probably,” Brett Brown said. “But we have a high volume of games in a tight period of time. We’re not really practicing much anyways. So our practice sessions are film and study and walk-through and lifting.

“Has it been discussed about sitting him a game? It has. I don’t believe that it is wise. I believe there is enough rest in between games, and we’re using that rest accordingly to help him. But it has not gotten to the stage that resting him for a game is going to jump-start him back to playing his best basketball.”

Saric, who averaged 14.6 points last season, was averaging 10.5 heading into the Clippers game. His 45.3 shooting percentage from 2017-2018 had dipped to 34.9 percent. Brown has said the 2016-17 NBA Rookie of the Year runner-up has looked, “heavy legged.”

“He does this,” Brown said. “Go back and look at the start of all of our years. You’re not going to find many years where this isn’t commonplace, where he starts kind of slow. I connect some of the dots to international summer experience. Maybe I’m right. Maybe I’m not. But this is not an outlier. At times, he starts slow. And everybody gets into a funk in an 82-game NBA season. It’s just featured probably a little more with Dario because it is now go time at the start of the season.

“He’s not where he wants to be. But I don’t have any doubt that he is going to start living up to what his resume says he’s achieved.”