For starters, Saric is option Brown should consider
CAMDEN, N.J. » Like any good coach, Brett Brown was still gripping his daily itinerary Tuesday, even after Day 1 of the 76ers’ training camp was over. On it, most likely, were downto-the-minute schedules for drills to be run, plays to be taught and details to be emphasized.
Not on it: Picking a starting five.
“It really isn’t,” Brown said, as his 76ers were finishing their work. “I have in my mind, and I’ve declared it, who I think it is going to be. But I am more interested, always, in who ends games and what you are going to do then. What are we going to put guys in? That’s always way more on my mind than starting.”
While Brown was being honest, particularly this early in the 2017-2018 process, the who-finishes rationalization for minimizing the importance of a starting lineup is old. It’s a deflection. It doesn’t address the issue. And for the Sixers this season, so deep and so varied in skills and experience level, it is not an easily dismissed topic.
Though Brown resisted texting the information to the scorer’s table for early preparation, he has in recent days outlined his likely starting team, all good health considered. It will include Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz in the backcourt, basically taking turns running the offense. Joel Embiid, naturally, will be in the middle. And Robert Covington and J.J. Redick will be on the wings. That lineup would have its strengths. But it is missing one thing: The best allaround player on the roster, one Dario Saric. And while that is likely where the whofinishes angle comes in, it also reveals one truth about the Sixers, even as Brown is openly demanding that his team reaches the playoffs.
It says, and actually it chants, that the Sixers remain in some sort of a developmental stage, no matter how many times they are scheduled for national TV.
“I know that I have a responsibility to grow Markelle,” Brown said. “Development and winning are mutually exclusive. You’d love to be able to do both. And so I’ve got to walk that line as a head coach. We are now in the position, and I’ve said it: Our goal is to make the playoffs. Yet there still is the reality that I have to develop a lot of the players, Markelle namely. And sometimes that doesn’t cross-pollinate.
“And so I think about identifying the starting group. But I really think about watching who is going to end games.”
Everything considered, and around Camden that includes the eternal interference of scientists, chances are Brown rarely will have the opportunity to select from the full menu before ordering his lineup. Embiid is not working fully in camp and admitted the other day that he’s not likely to play in all 82 games. Different circumstances arise. Matchups change. Rest is required. But the Sixers misjudged the talents of Saric early last season, when he didn’t blossom as a Rookie of the Year finalist until he began to regularly start games. While the impact-the-game sixth man still a useful basketball option, Saric clearly is more comfortable being introduced to pregame fireworks than entering a game a few minutes later.
But the new, deep, versatile Sixers roster again could keep Saric in his shooting shirt for a TV timeout or two. Yes, it worked 1,000 years ago with Bobby Jones popping off the bench to relieve Marc Iavaroni. Even then, however, that was considered an exception, not a recommendation.
“It’s a hard question,” Saric said Monday. “It’s just the first day here. For me, it will be hard to find some more minutes than last year. But of course last year, I played good. I hope I play the same this year. But I don’t think like that. I think we have a better team than last year, with better players.
“You are ready to take any role on the team that they give you. And that’s how I feel.”
That has been a persistent hum early in camp, and it is a healthy one. With a necessary injection of veterans like Amir Johnson, Kris Humphries and Redick, there has been a noticeable maturation of the roster. Yet with so many players about equally gifted and ready, there is a chance for inhouse stress. A high school team might be hypnotized by the who-finishes fable. Pros are likely to buy into it only until the third game of a four-game losing streak.
Training camp practices are closed to the press. But the coaches and players were in agreement with the Day 1 report that multiple lineups were used, and that even within those lineups, roles would change. Basketball rampaging toward a positionless pursuit, it’s the only way anymore for a coach to cope.
“I loved it,” Fultz said, of the way he and Simmons shared lead-guard responsibilities. “You don’t know what’s going to happen. He’s going to push it. I’m going to push it. We are going to run the floor. It’s unpredictable. I feel sorry for the teams that go out there and notice that.”
It’s been too long since the Sixers were feel-sorry carriers, not feel-sorry victims. So depth is valuable. But there will always be a value, too, in putting the best players on the floor as early as possible. At some point, Brown must include that on his list of priorities.