The Philadelphia 76ers are off to a hot start to the season with a 10-4 win-loss record, still good for a tie for second in the East, so no one will be picking apart their disappointing loss to one of their major rivals last night and their subsequent elimination from the in-season tournament.
The 76ers appear set to stay in the elite group of contenders despite predictions throughout the summer that the team would experience a sharp decline. This is thanks to Joel Embiid’s return to his Most Valuable Player-level play from the previous season, Tyrese Maxey’s rapid growth in Year 4, and even Tobias Harris’s career-best performance thus far.
One of the main factors in Philly’s explosive start has also been the arrival of new head coach Nick Nurse. The former Coach of the Year has given the team a new offensive identity that has improved roster optimization. Having said that, the 76ers are not flawless, and if one major flaw is ignored, it may end up being their downfall.
Why the 76ers need to address their greatest vulnerability as soon as possible
With only 15 bench minutes per game as of this writing, the 76ers are last in the league. The team has three players in the Top 20 in minutes per game, with Maxey leading the association in that category. It is evident that Nurse and the coaching staff have been reluctant to give the second unit a significant amount of court time.
To the dismay of many following the 2019 NBA Finals, Nurse has always preferred to lean heavily on his starters and play them a lot of minutes, but that has still come as a surprise given that Philadelphia boasts a far stronger roster than his Raptors teams.
We speculated before the season started that the 76ers might have built the strongest bench in the league. The long list of young players and seasoned veterans sitting on the bench lends some credence to that, but the coaching staff does not appear to see things that way. That is far from ideal, though.
The truth is that Philadelphia’s core is not the strongest. Embiid has never participated in a season with more than 68 games. Due to injury, Maxey missed 22 games in the previous campaign. One could argue that it would be beneficial for the coaching staff to better utilize the team’s depth and assuage the starters’ minutes whenever feasible in order to better future-proof them.
Furthermore, strengthening the bench offers numerous advantages. It would also guarantee that the remainder of the second unit can stay proficient enough to keep leads at the very least and competently step in whenever an injury occurs or someone is plagued by foul trouble. In addition to providing the team with a better look at possible combinations that could give them an advantage in specific matchups.
In the end, even though Nick Nurse has the Philadelphia 76ers winning, it would unquestionably be better if the coaching staff trusted the bench more than they did in order to prevent the main players from being overworked and to better prepare the team for future tactical needs, particularly in the playoffs.