The Philadelphia 76ers don’t officially play basketball again until Sunday, October 8, when they face the Boston Celtics in TD Garden after a week of training camp at Colorado State University's Moby Arena. But plenty of Sixers players already have hit the court together in the months leading up to camp.
Rico Hines, one of the Sixers' new assistant coaches, hosts pickup runs at the UCLA campus to give players the chance to get work in against fellow NBA players and improve their skills. All-Stars, up-and-coming young studs, role players and rookies alike participate in the runs. The games go to seven points with shots worth only one point from anywhere on the court. Whoever scores the seventh point must then make a free throw to secure the win.
Hines stresses to the players that he wants them to play hard. Obviously, no one plays as hard as they would in the playoffs, but they also don’t loaf around and exchange open dunks like it's the All-Star Game. The runs are for real, full-speed basketball against high-level competition. Hines displays genuine appreciation for the players who come out to his gym to improve and wants to host a safe haven for those who match his passion for the game.
Paul Reed, Jaden Springer, De'Anthony Melton, Terquavion Smith, Mo Bamba and Ricky Council IV represented the Sixers across numerous days of scrimmages. For the purposes of examining how they perform, we'll be looking at a few games from Hines' YouTube page. The runs hold multiple games at a time but only one gets filmed up close, so we're just going to focus on those.
The games, the dates they were posted online and the Sixers' opponents are as follows:
- Game 1 was posted on August 20 and featured Springer, Reed, Melton, Smith and Council going up against a team headlined by Harrison Barnes, Thomas Bryant and Markquis Nowell.
- Game 2 was from the same day, with the same Sixers facing off against a group of Toronto Raptors headlined by Pascal Siakam and Gradey Dick.
- Game 3 was posted on August 23 and featured Springer, Reed, Siakam, Kevon Looney and Jabari Smith Jr. going up against a group of guys who could either be future teammates of James Harden or future Sixers: Norman Powell, Bones Hyland, Robert Covington, K.J. Martin and Brandon Boston Jr.
- Game 4 was posted on September 1 and featured Reed, Bamba, Springer, Smith and Council going against a team with Barnes and two of his Sacramento Kings teammates: Kevin Huerter and Davion Mitchell.
- Game 5 was posted on September 9 and featured Reed, Melton, Council and Detroit Pistons players Marcus Sasser and Stanley Umude going up against a team of five Pistons: Cade Cunningham, Ausar Thompson, Jaden Ivey, Isaiah Stewart and Jalen Duren.
- Game 6 was posted on September 16 and featured Springer, Melton, Smith, Bamba and Reed against a team with Looney, Barnes and Mitchell.
- Game 7 was posted on the same day and featured the same Sixers playing a team with Powell, Jarred Vanderbilt and old friend Charles Bassey.
With what little footage we have of (some of) the Sixers playing basketball, let's dig in.
Paul Reed
With the backup center spot firmly his until further notice, Reed can feel more comfortable leaning into his unique style of play rather than away from it. But with a potential new role coming his way, he also has to expand his game.
Nick Nurse's commitment to trying out a Reed-Joel Embiid frontcourt this season means that the evolution of Reed's jump shot is extra important. His ability to shoot the deep ball has not translated from the G League, where he made 47 of his 110 attempts over 26 games, to the pros, where he has attempted only 20 three-pointers in 133 games (making three of them).
Reed spent plenty of time working on his ability to shoot while moving off the catch in workouts and in the Rico Hines runs. In a clip from Game 4, Reed beautifully converted his backpedal after screening into a smooth jumper that cut his team's deficit to two. He showed confidence in letting it fly, even with a defender in close proximity. On one possession in Game 3, he even squared up to the hoop and drew a hard closeout, opening the lane for him to drive for a layup.
There's plenty of typical Bball Paul activity to be seen — skying for rebounds, tipping missed shots to himself or his teammates, deflecting passes and throwing down easy two-hand dunks. In Game 7, he recorded a pair of steal-and-score sequences. The Sixers getting more hectic energy on the court is worth the downsides that occasionally come with it.
On top of playing in the Rico Hines runs for multiple days, Reed has practiced often in the Sixers' practice facility and popped out at a local pro-am league. He's as ready for the season to start as anyone.
Jaden Springer
Springer can be the reason why the Sixers' depth remains good despite losing numerous key bench players. The third-year guard could earn playing time under Nurse with his defensive capabilities and burgeoning offensive game.
Shooting from deep is the biggest thing Springer has to work on. He feels good about the work he has put in so far. His jumper mechanics don’t seem to have gotten much quicker, but he took (and made) plenty of threes during the runs. While the jumper remains a work in progress, what can Springer do to be of service to the Sixers' offense this season? At the outset of the season, it's to be a wrecking ball in the paint and score on the interior.
Springer's basket to win Game 1 was a work of art. On the right baseline, he jabbed toward the sideline and darted to the paint. He protected the ball from a nearby help defender, sealed off his defender with his back and finished a reverse layup, jumping across the paint but putting enough juice and spin on the shot to get it to drop.
In Game 2, he gave Dick a “welcome to the league” moment of sorts by leaving him in the dust multiple times. He scored a layup with a trigger-step hesi on one possession, deployed a quick-crossover-into-drive move and dumped it off to Reed on another and then stopped on a dime to hit him with a behind-the-back dribble that nearly made Dick hit the deck and freed himself for a two-handed stuff. It's not quite the same as Embiid dunking on Bamba's head in 2018, but the Raptors rookie sure got a taste of what even lightly experienced NBA guys can do.
Springer guarded a variety of players. He hunkered down against the bigger and older Barnes, matched up with newbies like Dick and Nowell, and defended fellow young guards like Hyland and Mitchell. That's the side of the ball where there are no doubts about what he can do. Addressing the ones that exist on the other end is the key for him this season.
De'Anthony Melton
Melton performed admirably as the Sixers' sixth man/plug-in starter last season. The latter role will be increasingly important with James Harden's status in limbo. In the Rico Hines runs, he shot off the bounce a bunch — something that he could be doing more of this season.
While shooting off the dribble and off screens is something Melton can do, it's not often something he does. It's completely unsurprising given that his role was to spot up for the Sixers' stars and have them create for him in his debut year with Philly. But with one star potentially ready to go MIA and a new coach ready to make the offense less stagnant, Melton will likely increase his output in non-stationary threes.
Buckets from Games 1 and 6 showed Melton settling into a spot on the right wing, squaring up to the hoop and swishing a shot. Adding more comfort with shots like that can help the Sixers become more diverse on offense. Another focus for Melton going into the season should be on his shots at the rim. He looked much more comfortable shooting the ball than he did attacking the rim, which also indicates his splendid shooting abilities on top of his need for improvement elsewhere.
Melton showed his nose for rebounds by beating out Stewart to tip in a miss. He stayed active on defense by intercepting and deflecting a handful of passes. Even though he's undersized for a versatile 3-and-D player, the Sixers will once again need him to be a do-it-all type of role player.
Terquavion Smith
The darling of the summer Sixers keeps working on his game as he looks to prove teams wrong for leaving him undrafted in the 2023 NBA Draft.
Smith took the lead for the Sixers group in Game 7 with a double-between-the-legs move into a pull-up three. The ball went up often when the NC State product had it. In one game he played as the lone Sixer on his team, he scored three of his team's five points off of jumpers.
While the buckets give Smith a name, it's the little things that will earn him a chance with the Sixers. He made plays for others and stayed attentive on defense…for the most part. Again, this isn’t the environment where guys are gonna dig all the way in. Smith's defense looked pretty good in Summer League, inspiring at least some confidence that he'll turn out fine.
Smith allowed a bucket in Game 4 when he completely lost track of Mitchell, who cut right behind him and shot a layup that Reed tried to block but resulted in a goaltending call. His skinny frame hurt him here and there when he tried to corral his man. The effort was there just about every time, though, which is the most you can ask for in games like these from a young guard like him.
Mo Bamba
Bamba got some good work in with his new Sixers teammates ahead of training camp. For someone who has no familiarity with anyone else on the team — he and Embiid are friends, but he has yet to be on the same roster as anyone on the team — that can be pretty helpful, even if it's just for a short pick-up game.
In his introductory Sixers presser, Bamba discussed the possibility of playing in a two-big lineup with Embiid. As one of the best shooters amongst seven-footers, he presents a seamless option as a stretch four. Playing alongside Reed, he looked the part. He also has the wherewithal to survey the whole floor when he's spaced out, finding Reed on a cut with a crisp pass.
New Sixers center Mo Bamba showing some flashes in the recent Rico Hines runs
Bamba played off Terquavion Smith really well and also looked good sharing the court with Bball Paul. Playing Reed at PF is definitely a wrinkle I would like I see the Sixers experiment with pic.twitter.com/z2DtVk1NYl
— Sean Barnard (@Sean_Barnard1) September 1, 2023
The skills you expect from Bamba — threes and interior defense — are all there. His role with the Sixers shouldn’t be a huge one, though it's tough not to get intrigued by what Nurse could do with a player of Bamba's size and skills.
Ricky Council IV
Another undrafted rookie who dazzled for the summer Sixers, Council showed his bouncy athleticism with some nice dunks, including a double-clutch dunk in Game 3.
Council ran some pick-and-roll as the roller and handled the ball here and there. It was a nice mix of situations for the rookie, but he didn’t do much to stand out. One sequence from Game 1 should offer hope that Council can eventually be trusted more with the ball in his hands. He sized up his defender from the left wing, executd a left-to-right crossover and snapped a bounce pass to a cutting Smith, who converted a layup. Reading the floor that quickly and getting it right to Smith in the natural motion of his dribbling face-up was impressive.
Council getting any run he can get against NBA competition is good. Iron sharpens iron. While he is quite the athlete, he has to fine-tune his skill set before becoming playable for long stretches at the highest level.
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