Nick Nurse has plenty of new pieces to work with in Philadelphia, but he isn’t rushing to decide exactly how they will all fit together.
The 76ers opened training camp with a dramatically different roster headlined by LeBron James and Jaylen Brown alongside Tyrese Maxey, and Nurse plans to use the next few weeks to experiment before locking players into specific roles.
“I got an idea as I do with every guy with what their role should be,” Nurse said, according to Yahoo Sports. “And even bullet points underneath, but I want to see the group for a couple weeks before I start trying to narrow that down. I want to collaborate with each player on that. We need to clearly define roles for everybody.”
Philadelphia’s offense has plenty of room for improvement after finishing last season 26th in effective field-goal percentage, 21st in true shooting and 28th in assist rate.
Adding James and Brown should immediately give Nurse more options, while offseason additions Anfernee Simons, Dean Wade and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope provide additional shooting around the team’s stars.
Nurse believes the new personnel could help Philadelphia play faster and create better opportunities.
“I think a lot of things will help the efficiency,” Nurse told Yahoo Sports. “I think we’ll have a little bit better pace. Passing — I think these guys are a little bit bigger and have better vision. And obviously they can score too. That helps.”
Finding the right balance will be one of the biggest challenges of training camp.
James, Brown and Maxey will command significant defensive attention, potentially creating plenty of catch-and-shoot opportunities for players such as Simons. Nurse could also make adjustments to Joel Embiid’s offensive role after 35 percent of his shots last season came through self-created opportunities, including post-ups and isolation possessions.
Despite Philadelphia’s struggles last season, Nurse believes the team was still generating plenty of the looks it wanted. Now, the difference could simply be having more players capable of converting them.
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