The Sixers won’t field close to a full-strength team for their preseason opener.
James Harden, Joel Embiid, De’Anthony Melton and Furkan Korkmaz will miss Sunday night’s exhibition contest against the Celtics at TD Garden, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Keith Pompey. The game is scheduled to tip off at 6 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on ESPN.
After requesting a trade this summer and then missing media day and Day 1 of training camp, Harden has participated in the Sixers’ last four practices.
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“He’s here, and his attitude and energy today allowed everybody to understand that he wants to go out there and compete with us,” Tobias Harris said after Day 2 of the Sixers’ camp in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Sixers head coach Nick Nurse told reporters on Saturday that Harden scrimmaged for the first time and was on Embiid’s team, per Pompey. The Sixers' Instagram page posted snippets of that action.
Harden and Embiid were also among the Sixers’ starters out last year when the team began its preseason with a Tyrese-Maxey led win over the Nets. Especially with Harden and Melton out, Maxey’s work running the Sixers’ offense and handling the ball in pick-and-rolls will be interesting to watch.
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Nurse has indicated that the Sixers have multiple competitions to monitor this preseason. While the team’s first game presumably won’t provide much clarity on where everything stands, those internal battles — Danuel House Jr., Kelly Oubre Jr. and Danny Green on the wing, for instance — are a significant subplot.
“I really think we’ve got a lot of guys that can contribute on this team,” Nurse said Wednesday. “Who ends up starting and all that stuff, we’ve still got a process for that. And I also know that’s so fluid in this day and age, depending on injuries, who’s in, who’s out and all that stuff anyway. So being versatile and flexible … is what I think it’d be like.”