The Philadelphia 76ers held media day today at their training complex in Camden, New Jersey. They'll head down to Charleston, South Carolina to kick off training camp tomorrow.
I'll drop in some of the relevant quotes below, broken down by topic. The post will mostly be the players doing the talking, with some brief notes from yours truly.
The new additions
For what feels like the first time in forever the Sixers are heading into the start of the season with little controversy* surrounding them.
(*There is, of course, the one small detail of the league investigating the Sixers' offseason moves for tampering. When asked about the status of the investigation, Sixers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey simply said that "I think the league office does a great job." Morey's priority here was clear: avoiding a fine. Nevertheless...)
They're not changing GMs or coaches, as they were two years ago. There's no star player holding out. None of their front office executives trashed players publicly through burner Twitter accounts leading to an investigation from a firm that "specializes in those kinds of things". It was ... a normal summer, which means the discussion heading into training camp largely revolved around the actual basketball related moves they made over previous few months.
What a novel concept.
The moves the Sixers did make – primarily in adding De'Anthony Melton, Danuel House, PJ Tucker and Montrezl Harrell – have been almost universally praised, with most considering the Sixers one of the three primary threats to come out of the Eastern Conference and compete for an NBA championship.
"I think they all fit in well. Each one of them fills a need, in a lot of ways," head coach Doc Rivers said of the Sixers' offseason additions. "I thought we had a targeted summer, and we hit pretty much what we were looking for."
"One thing coach identified that made things challenging, in the playoffs especially, was the lack of players who can play both sides of the ball, which become more important during the playoffs," Morey said. "So that was a big priority for Elton [Brand] and myself."
