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Like most coaches, Nurse typically goes with nine players on a given night during the regular season (barring injuries and foul trouble). And with a clear hole at backup power forward, he has three obvious options to use as his final rotation piece who can credibly man that position.
Ricky Council IV, an undrafted rookie last season signed to a two-way contract, came on strong in the second half of the season and earned a long-term standard NBA deal. He thrived in NBA Summer League last July, displaying all of the skills that flashed in his NBA cameos. Council is a relentless driver with exceptional athleticism, surprisingly strong touch around the rim and the ability to draw fouls at will. He has the requisite frame and motor, combined with that athleticism, to be a reliable multi-positional defender. He can play at the four in a pinch, even if it is not his natural position. Sixers fans are incredibly excited about Council's long-term potential despite being very much an unproven three-point shooter and creator -- rightfully so.
KJ Martin came to Philadelphia in the James Harden trade last season, and many glossed over that he held genuine value as an asset at the time. Martin was coming off a season in which he played 82 games and averaged 28.0 minutes per contest as a 22-year-old forward with ridiculous athletic tools. Martin is probably an even better pure athlete than Council, and that is saying something. While Martin's jump-shooting mechanics are a lot cleaner than those of Council, the results have never been there. Listed at 6-foot-6 and 215 pounds, Martin does not boast conventional power forward size, but that position still figures to be his long-term home. He is very sturdy on top of being an absurd athlete. Martin has more experience under Nurse than any other option, and the trust he developed over the course of last season could be a factor here.
A surprise entrant threw his name into the hat when Guerschon Yabusele left Real Madrid to sign a one-year, veteran's minimum deal with the Sixers after starring for Team France in the 2024 Olympic Games. Yabusele offers a unique blend of strength, toughness and floor spacing: he has a ton of muscle and is a workhorse down low, and has developed a fairly reliable three-point stroke. He has a lot to prove, but the makings of a quality rotation frontcourt player are there.
So, how will Nurse go about filling out the final piece (or two) of his nightly rotation? I see three potential options:
Host a traditional training camp battle with one winner
The most common way to settle this sort of issue is the one I expect Nurse to take: an old-fashioned training camp battle. It is not a complex strategy: use Council, Martin and Yabusele in various lineups and situations during the team's five-day training camp, then evaluate how they look against other NBA teams when the preseason begins and go from there.
As Nurse prepared for his first season at the helm of the Sixers, he spent much of the preseason stressing the importance of players having a firm grasp of his schemes -- particularly on the defensive end, where things can get complicated. For a coach who often uses unconventional methods, a player not understanding the team's core philosophies is not a viable option.
If Nurse is to hold similar ideals in the highest regards entering training camp and the preseason next month, it would put Yabusele at a disadvantage relative to the other two players, who spent much of last season developing under Nurse and his staff.
Of course, the important thing to remember here is that no decision is permanent. If I had to guess what will ultimately happen, it would be that Nurse holds this sort of training camp battle and begins the season with Martin as the last member of his rotation. But that is in no way a final determination, injuries and performance across the board will net opportunities for Council, Yabusele and plenty of others over the course of an 82-game regular season.
Expand rotation to 10 players
This is another real possibility -- Nurse giving two of these three players roles in the rotation. If Nurse went this route, it would likely benefit Yabusele: Martin and Council have enough similarities that playing both may appear redundant; playing one of the two athletic specimens who are shaky jump-shooters as well as a bruiser with a relatively reliable three-point shot makes much more sense.
The primary motivation of going down this path is clear: playing 10 players instead of nine gives one more player a chance to shine. It could also be argued that adding an extra player to the rotation -- and, in turn, likely docking several rotation members of a few minutes each to do so -- can help keep players better conditioned throughout the season. For example, when I mapped out an entire game's worth of lineups and substitutions for the Sixers back in July, I had Caleb Martin playing 31 minutes, but he only averaged 27.4 minutes per game with the Miami Heat last season. Chipping away a bit at a few players' workloads could benefit the Sixers in the long-term.
However, there are downsides to this approach. First of all, Nurse has often preferred going with fewer players logging more minutes rather than more players logging fewer minutes. Additionally, the two players out of Martin, Council and Yabusele who would receive minutes in this scenario would be playing far fewer minutes than if they had been the lone member of the trio to be nabbed as a member of the regular rotation. It is considerably more difficult to both find your footing and impress when you are playing in the neighborhood of 10 minutes per game.
Play the matchups
Here we have the tactic that I would deploy, but the vast majority of NBA coaches have often hesitated to embrace. I understand it -- regularity can be comforting, and perhaps it is more difficult to manage personalities and egos within a locker room when lineups are changing from game to game. But why can't Nurse's backup power forward simply be whichever of Martin, Council and Yabusele makes the most sense against a particular team?
Allow me to give you an example of what I mean: the team's full regular season schedule was released a few weeks ago, and they open their season against the Milwaukee Bucks. Not only do the Bucks have the enormous Giannis Antetokounmpo at power forward for most of any 48-minute game, but they also play two-big lineups with the bruising Bobby Portis manning the four. In a matchup like this, having as much strength and rebounding prowess as possible would be key, making Yabusele the ideal choice.
Then the Sixers will travel to Toronto for their second game of the season, a battle against a rebuilding Raptors team that has a unique collection of wing-sized ball-handlers. The 6-foot-7 Scottie Barnes will likely be one of their primary ball-handlers; another will be RJ Barrett, who is only an inch shorter. But like the Sixers, they will lack traditional size at the four in the vast majority of their lineups. That presents an opportunity to use KJ Martin, who can help limit Barnes and other wing-sized players on Toronto's roster.
When the Sixers return home after their first road trip of the season, they will face old friend Tobias Harris and the Detroit Pistons. Of all players who seem like safe bets to be in Detroit's rotation at the beginning of the season, Harris is the only one with the size and strength of a typical power forward. The only tough cover on the Pistons is Cade Cunningham, and the Sixers could throw any of Oubre, George or Caleb Martin on him. This would be a perfect matchup to unleash Council, asking him to generate havoc on both ends of the floor as a natural creator of chaos.
With three players in the mix who seem to, in the aggregate, all be within shouting distance of each other in terms of overall ability, I believe the optimal path is to maximize each one's ability to thrive within particular matchups to begin the season -- in all likelihood, one of the three would eventually stand out among the rest as the superior option. Until then, though, Nurse should seriously consider seeking out the perfect environments for each one to succeed -- almost like how a baseball manager will use platoons in a batting order.
It is unorthodox in the NBA, but that does not mean it will not work.
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