CAMDEN, N.J. — Reigning NBA MVP Joel Embiid is set for his first exhibition action.
Following practice Sunday at the Sixers’ training complex, head coach Nick Nurse said he expects Embiid to play in the team's penultimate preseason game Monday night against the Nets at Barclays Center. The six-time All-Star center sat out two preseason losses to the Celtics.
“He’s played quite a bit live now, so we’re expecting him to be out there,” Nurse said.
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Amid his continued discontent with Sixers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey, James Harden said Friday that he’ll “ramp it up and try to play the last (preseason game) just to get myself in game situations and get used to the physicality of defenders bumping you and whatnot — the speed, the tempo, all that good stuff. I think we’ve got a good plan in place.”
Harden again worked out after practice with Sixers assistant coach Rico Hines.
Though Furkan Korkmaz practiced, he’s “unlikely” to play in Brooklyn, according to Nurse.
NBA
Korkmaz “felt a little cramp in the (left) hamstring” during training camp, he said Sunday, and has been sidelined since then.
“I feel much better,” he said. “I got good work in (just) now. It’s really day to day; I’m really close to playing. I will be happy to see myself back on the court.”
As Nurse learns about his new team and considers who’s worthy of rotation places, Korkmaz hasn’t yet been able to make a case for himself. The Sixers lost a valuable shooter off the bench from last year’s team in Georges Niang and always want to have players who fire up jumpers around Embiid, so perhaps Korkmaz can eventually impress Nurse in that area.
“We’ve still got a couple of weeks here, right? And there’s nothing you can do,” Nurse said. “You can’t necessarily penalize somebody because of a legitimate injury. So we’ll do the best we can and we’ll go live as much as we can leading into the next game. And then we’ll certainly give him a good look in the (final preseason) game.”
Even when the Sixers’ regular-season opener arrives on Oct. 26 against the Bucks, Nurse’s rotation doesn’t seem like it will be fully settled.
Harden’s trade request makes everything cloudier. So does the volume of players vying for wing minutes, including Kelly Oubre Jr., Danny Green, Danuel House Jr. and Korkmaz. Last time out, Oubre (18 points on 6-for-8 shooting) and Green (eight points, three assists, three steals) did well.
“I don’t have a very good idea,” Nurse said Friday of his rotation. “Obviously there’s a group of guys. I would love to get there. It’s really hard to do in the preseason because you don’t ever really get everybody there. Hopefully we will for a couple of games so we can at least look at it. But I think obviously you can put any one of six starters, probably. Paul Reed is probably a for sure in the rotation (player).
“Where does everybody else fall? They’re still battling. I think Oubre’s showing he’s probably going to hit the rotation. Danny played pretty well. There’s still Furk, who we haven’t seen now for a while. … I mean, I’ve got to look at some guys that I haven’t seen yet to figure out the rest of it.
“Jaden Springer, just because of the numbers of all those guys I’ve talked about, I’d probably have Jaden a little further down just out of need, but he’s kind of vaulted himself back up into the conversation for sure. He’s just done everything we’ve asked him to do and played really well. That’s how you do it.”
Grabbing the whiteboard … for a day
Instead of Nurse, Springer got coached Saturday in the Sixers’ Blue-White scrimmage by fellow Tennessee product Tobias Harris.
PJ Tucker assisted Harris. On the other sideline, Patrick Beverley coached passionately alongside fellow veterans Embiid and Green.
After the free, fan-centric event at Chase Fieldhouse in Wilmington, Delaware, Nurse revealed that Beverley is interested in coaching once his playing career concludes.
How about Harris?
“Never,” he said Sunday with a laugh. “Never. At one point I was like, ‘All right, I’ve got to calm down because I’m going to lose my voice.’ And then I was just like, ‘There’s too much emotional energy that goes into it.’
“But it was fun, though. It’s all good fun. I don’t know how after the game Pat Bev was telling me that he outcoached me, which was crazy. But that’s Pat Bev.”