Though their most important player is 7 feet tall, the 2025-26 Sixers plan to lean into guard play.
The Sixers hope Joel Embiid is healthy enough to play and to star. They also expect to feature small, skilled and fast lineups.
At Friday’s media day, Sixers head coach Nick Nurse highlighted the team’s ability to play a variety of guard combinations, including three-guard units and “maybe a four-guard rotation at times.”
Some waiting will be required before Nurse can test all of his guard experiments.
Jared McCain is sidelined by a UCL tear in his right thumb and Quentin Grimes’ restricted free agency is unresolved. Jake Fischer reported Sunday that, “short of accepting a one-year ‘balloon’ payment, Grimes appears headed toward accepting” the Sixers’ single-season, $8.7 million qualifying offer. Grimes did not join the Sixers on their trip to Abu Dhabi for two preseason games vs. the Knicks.
For now, Tyrese Maxey and rookie VJ Edgecombe are both working to gel and competing against each other at practice. Following Sunday’s session, the two were part of a small group that played 1-on-1 with a five-second limit. In the brief period open to reporters, Edgecombe fared well.
“For the most part, we’re going to have them together, but there is a good 40 percent of practice where they’re going at it,” Nurse said. “And they like to go at it after practice. … That’s good to see, too.”
Back in January, Maxey talked about his comfort in three-guard lineups with Kyle Lowry and Reggie Jackson, citing his college days alongside Immanuel Quickley and Ashton Hagans. The Sixers’ three-guard units this season project to be much more youthful.
“I think the biggest thing is you’ve got to be unselfish,” Maxey said Friday, “and you’ve got to have an open mind. …That just really helps, especially when you have dynamic shooting, dynamic playmaking, guys that can play off the catch, play off closeouts, attack the paint. … It makes you more dangerous.”
Of course, lineups loaded with guards usually have vulnerabilities. Nurse has said defensive rebounding will need to be a “collective effort” that the Sixers purposefully drill and game plan. The team struggled on the defensive glass the past two seasons.
With that said, no team is excellent in all areas. For instance, the defending champion Thunder ranked 21st last year in defensive rebounding rate, per Cleaning the Glass.
Nurse wants to identify the Sixers’ strengths and make the most of them.
“I always try to look at the positives,” he said Sunday. “You’ve got to always keep thinking of, ‘What’s our advantage here?’ … Are we faster, are we quicker? Are we better shooters? Do we have more handlers out there? Keep reminding yourself that there are advantages.
“And then you’re saying, ‘Oh my God, how are we going to guard the low post when we switch the 1-4 pick-and-roll, or the 2-3 pick-and-roll, or the 2-4 pick-and-roll?’ So yeah, we know we’ve got to work. We’ve got to drill guarding bigger people on the low block or drill schemes on the low block. … The rebounding, we’ve got to drill it and we’ve got to scheme it.
“… But I’ve always got to keep reminding myself that yeah, that’s going to be tough to guard on the low block. And yes, it’s going to be tough to rebound against size. But can we pull ‘em away and get more space? Can we get more threes because they’re too slow for us? Can we go around them and offensive rebound? … Mostly, I think it’s just making sure we put some thought into those two areas — guarding the low block and defensive rebounding.”
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