It’s been rumored for a while, and now it seems to be happening.
Philadelphia has been practicing with Ben Simmons playing power forward, coach Brett Brown told the media on a conference call from Orlando Monday. Joel Embiid added that Shake Milton has been playing point guard, which would add shooting and make the Sixers starters a more dynamic and dangerous lineup. That also means Al Horford would be coming off the bench.
Embiid had nothing but praise for Milton, via Noah Levick of NBC Sports Philadephia:
“He’s been amazing,” he said. “He’s been the starting point guard. I think he has a huge opportunity to help us accomplish what we believe we can. He’s been doing an amazing job, just running the team, and we’re going to need him to knock down shots, which he did before the league basically got shut down. He was on a roll. So we all need him to keep it going. But it’s been great.”
On paper, a lineup of Milton, Josh Richardson, Tobias Harris, Simmons, and Embiid should be a force — but it has played zero minutes together this season. A couple of weeks of practices and eight seeding games — ones treated more like an exhibition game than a regular-season game — may not be enough time to develop real chemistry.
Playing Simmons and Embiid as the frontline is the latest attempt to get their games to fit together. There remain doubters around the league the two can blend — unless Simmons can develop a reliable jump shot and three-point ball to space the floor — but the best chance may be to put three shooters around Simmons and Embiid. One of the three shooters needs to be a secondary shot creator. Maybe that can work, and for the rest of this season the Sixers can take notes on if this will work.
A healthy Philadelphia team — Simmons would have missed a lot of time heading into the playoffs with his back issue — is one of the dark horses in the East. If this team becomes as good on the court as it does on paper, if it can play like it’s a home game and not a road game (the 76ers were 10-24 on the road), they have a chance. This lineup may give them the best chance.
