PHILADELPHIA \u2013 With the collection of new faces for the Philadelphia 76ers, the questions in this first week of training camp have naturally gravitated toward roles.<\/p>\n
How will Joel Embiid and LeBron James fit? How can one ball satisfy the usage of four All-NBA performers? How will it work on the defensive end?<\/p>\n
That is not what Embiid or James are really worried about. And they showed in Saturday\u2019s Blue X White Scrimmage at Xfinity Mobile Arena that the process of getting great basketball players on the court together, playing and relating to one another, is the first and biggest step to resolving those questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just trying to build,\u201d James said. \u201cEvery day is an opportunity for us to get better and better. It\u2019s just a 1% each day mentality for us. So this is another extension of our training camp, and I feel like we were able to do some things that we\u2019ve been working on, both offensively and defensively. So just try to get better, and I think today we did that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been good, obviously new guys, but I played with and against some of them, most of them, for my career,\u201d Embiid said. \u201cI know how to play and I think it\u2019s been, quite honestly, it\u2019s been easy, just everybody getting together and playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each time the higher-order concepts have been brought up \u2013 sacrifice, fit, roles \u2013 players have generally brushed it aside this week. That will come in time. But the first imperative is to understand each other, to get a feel for how to play with one another. They\u2019ve done that with a scrimmage-heavy first week, coach Nick Nurse preferring to get his guys competing and problem-solving at speed in workouts the last four days in Camden.<\/p>\n
The effort has been hastened by availability, which anyone who follows the 76ers knows is never a given.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been playing a ton,\u201d President of Basketball Operations Mike Gansey said. \u201cCoach has done a really good job because we have so many different faces and guys are trying to come together that I think just playing, getting the kinks out, guys learning each other, I think that\u2019s the best way to kind of gel and build chemistry. And it\u2019s been fun. Everyone\u2019s kind of had their moments in practice and scrimmages, so it\u2019s been fun seeing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Embiid has been healthy from Day 1. He looks lighter on his feet on the court, able to do things in Saturday\u2019s scrimmage that he only sparingly did last year, when he played 38 regular-season games and seven of 11 in the postseason. Nurse said Friday that Embiid has taken part in every drill this preseason.<\/p>\n
James went one step further.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe hasn\u2019t missed the practice,\u201d James said. \u201cHe\u2019s been in everything that we\u2019ve done, and pretty much they\u2019ve had to sit him out at times, even when he wanted to keep going. \u2026 It\u2019s been great.\u201d<\/p>\n
All eyes are understandably on James. The 22-time All-Star is the new face. And he\u2019s LeBron James. But James had nothing but positives to say about the first week of acclimation on the court, even if the adjustment to living and commuting via helicopter to New York remains a work in progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been very smooth and the simple fact that everybody\u2019s been super welcoming, I\u2019ve been able to implement some things with my voice and just my command of how I play the game and my experience of playing the game,\u201d James said. \u201cI\u2019m still getting more and more comfortable off the floor, Obviously with travel and without my family and things of that nature. So that\u2019s going to be a little bit of a challenge. But everything\u2019s been good so far. Great first week.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of Embiid\u2019s answers Saturday typified how he and others are approaching things. James pointed out the chemistry the two had formed at the 2024 Summer Olympics, when they helped the United States win a gold medal. That is the starting point for them, and it\u2019s eased some of the learning process, especially when James lauds Embiid for looking much healthier than he was then.<\/p>\n
When that quote was put to Embiid, he shrugged it off. The history is less important than each player\u2019s disposition that led to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously the Olympics was great, but whether we have played together or not, I don\u2019t think it was going to matter because at the end of the day when you put, whether it\u2019s you know two players, a bunch of players together that have a high basketball IQ, it\u2019s going to be easy to figure it out,\u201d Embiid said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s been the case. High basketball IQ, both want to pass, make the right play, I think he just helps the whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Embiid looked great in the scrimmage. He did the usual things you expect, as a catch-and-shoot option off the ball and in the two-man screen game with Tyrese Maxey and others. But visibly lighter on his feet, he also pulled out some of the details that you didn\u2019t see a ton last year. He hedged hard on high screens. He was combative at the rim defensively, with one block on a VJ Edgecombe dunk attempt. He took the ball hard to the hole and dunked, continuing the ongoing bit of it being \u201cprobably the last dunk of my career.\u201d<\/p>\n
James and Embiid are two of the most talented players of their era. Questions about their coexistence, to them, begin and end with desire. If they want to make it work playing together \u2013 and everything they\u2019ve said suggests they passionately do \u2013 then they will figure it out. It\u2019s not bragging when James answers a question about roles by saying, \u201cI have a sense of how I play the game, and I know what I can do to help this team win.\u201d Nor when Embiid offers, \u201cIt\u2019s not changing. I mean, I can do everything on the basketball court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Time, practice and connection are what matter most to them. It gives them every opportunity to be great in tandem with the other stars the 76ers have assembled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think when you put great players together, the standards you should have for yourself should be, whether it\u2019s being more efficient, because obviously you might get less touches, but you might get also more space,\u201d James said. \u201cSo what are you going to do with that space? So whether it\u2019s for him (Maxey), for me, for everybody, starting lineup guys, coming off the bench, different roles. Roles don\u2019t even matter. It\u2019s just about making the right play for each other over and over and over, and find a way to be, I think for me, more efficient than you\u2019ve ever been.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2013 With the collection of new faces for the Philadelphia 76ers, the questions in this first week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":850295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,6,207,66,7464],"class_list":["post-850294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117379572888964196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}