A coach is never satisfied, especially when a new season is about to begin.
So as the Sixers head into the final game of the preseason, head coach Brett Brown wishes he had more time.
How much more time?
“About two weeks,” Brown said after Thursday’s practice at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.
“We’re two weeks behind, I feel. Two weeks behind, and that’s probably even being a little generous. Nik (Stauskas) hasn’t played. It’s more about Jahlil (Okafor) and Nerlens (Noel).”
The Sixers' dynamic duo, Okafor and Noel, have played together in just three of the five preseason games. Both players also missed a handful of practices with one nagging injury or another and Brown would like to have more time for the pair to get used to each other.
But even if Okafor and Noel had been together for every game, Brown still was playing without some major pieces. Shooting guard Nik Stauskas has been out since the end of training camp with a stress reaction in his right tibia.
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Brown might have known something was up when training camp started and he only had enough players for one full court game. Though the Sixers started with six point guards on the roster with the hope of starting the season with three, they’ve never had the full deck. Kendall Marshall and Tony Wroten are out for the foreseeable future as they recover from ACL injuries and T.J. McConnell, Pierre Jackson and Scottie Wilbekin have all missed time with injuries.
Isaiah Canaan, almost by default, will be the starting point guard on opening night.
“It’s a jigsaw puzzle, because, on one level, you want to get our guys playing together, especially Nerlens and Jah, because they really haven't played much together,” Brown said.
It’s a jigsaw puzzle with a lot of missing pieces. Not only does Brown and general manager Sam Hinkie have to figure out what to do about the thin backcourt, but also they have to decide which players will line the depth chart behind Okafor and Noel.
Furkan Aldemir, one of Hinkie’s pet projects, is out for the preseason finale though he hasn’t really distinguished himself in previous game action. Aldemir, from Turkey, is owed $2.6 million this season and has a non-guaranteed contract over the next two seasons.
He also shares an agent with another Hinkie project in Dario Saric, who the Sixers are desperately hoping can join the team sooner rather than later. Would the Sixers keep Aldemir because of his ties to Saric, or will they go with better players in rookies Richaun Holmes and Christian Wood?
When Hinkie and Brown get together to work on a roster before Wednesday’s opener, they will both be well aware of contract situations and how that affects putting together the best roster.
“He draws his line in the sand and I draw my line in the sand, and we massage it out and get with the owners and figure it out,” Brown said.
The easiest part of the process, Brown said, is working with Hinkie. The toughest part is releasing a player that should have made the club.
“We’re way past not genuinely trying to do this together,” Brown said. “When you sit down and he thinks something and I think something, it’s clear. We will both fight for different things. From a business perspective and trying to grow our program tough decisions might have to be made. He and I have sat down most days over the past few weeks, just touching base and talking about it. It’s never an easy time coming up.”
For a coach it never is. That’s especially the case when the coach wants a few more practice sessions with his young prodigies.
Brown will get his last and longest chance to watch Okafor and Noel together on Friday night.
“I hope to see enough of them,” Brown said. “I don’t even want to quantify what that number means. I do want to play them together and I don’t know how long it will be.”
Long enough to know he wants more time.