Sixers enter another offseason of roster uncertainty

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In Brett Brown's two seasons as head coach, 42 different players have put on a Sixers uniform, not counting the injured Joel Embiid and conscientious objector Andrei Kirilenko.

Who will be back from this year's season-ending 15-man roster? That's anyone's guess.

The Sixers have five second-round picks coming in this year's draft (though their own is headed to Boston to complete an old trade from 2012) and have a minute shot at owning three first-round picks if the draft lottery falls into chaos.

Sixers fans shouldn't get their hopes up for that dream first-round scenario — it would require two teams seeded 11th to 14th finishing in the top three, squeezing the Lakers out of the top-five and the Heat out of the top-10 — but there should be plenty of new faces in training camp next year.

Add in free agency and the summer league and the possibility remains the Sixers' roster will be almost completely unrecognizable next year — again.

"At the end of the day, to coach gypsies, to have to coach a revolving door — that's not what I'm looking for," Brown said before Wednesday's 105-101 loss to the Heat. "I think that the program understands — (GM) Sam (Hinkie) understands, (owner) Josh (Harris) understands — that we need a level of consistency to move [the team] forward."

Brown says that winning will be important next year. At least a few players on the roster now should be around to see to it that the Sixers make tangible progress towards that goal.

Nerlens Noel and Embiid are intended to be franchise cornerstones and should be the 4 and 5 on the floor next year, assuming both are healthy. Robert Covington performed well after being signed from the D-League in November and should be in the mix for minutes at small forward. Jerami Grant and Tony Wroten should both stick around.

But things get murky after that. Six Sixers — Jason Richardson, Luc Mbah a Moute, Thomas Robinson, Ish Smith, Henry Sims and Glenn Robinson III — are set to have their contracts expire after this year, and not everyone will be back.

So last night's loss created a strange reality in the Sixers' locker room, one in which upheaval constantly looms.

"It is [a strange feeling]," Covington said. "We've just got to worry about what we're going to do when we come back. All the other stuff, it can mess your head up."

From the players' standpoint, it makes no sense to worry one way or another about lottery pick conveyances or tanking. For D-League call-ups like Covington, playing for the Sixers is their first and best shot to show what they can do in the NBA. At the very least, the Sixers' situation creates a unique locker-room bond.

"Just knowing that we're all we've got, we've got to just come together," small forward JaKarr Sampson said. "I feel like the city of Philadelphia respects that we play hard and we come to work every day with a good attitude and the mindset to get better every day."

That kind of attitude was evident by the look on Sampson's face after his steal-and-slam, the final two points of his team-high 22, briefly gave the Sixers a 101-100 lead late in the fourth quarter Wednesday night.

He'll have a happy memory to carry into an offseason of uncertainty, the likes of which few on the Sixers' current roster have experienced.

Shooting guard Hollis Thompson, who signed with the Sixers before 2013, is one who has. After two seasons of trades and signings around him, the team's rapidly increasing expenditures on new locker-room nameplates becomes commonplace.

"At this point," Thompson said, "I'm kind of used to it."

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