March 22, 2025
Dustin Safranek/Imagn Images
Ricky Council IV has a lot to gain (or lose) over the next few weeks.
Around 7:30 p.m. local time on Friday, the Sixers released head coach Nick Nurse's starting lineup for the night's matchup against the San Antonio Spurs. Jared Butler and Quentin Grimes made up Nurse's backcourt, with Guerschon Yabusele manning the middle behind a wing duo of Justin Edwards and Chuma Okeke. It was Okeke's first start as a Sixer after he posted a double-double two nights earlier in a blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Sixers' 46th unique starting lineup of the season was more notable for who it did not include: Ricky Council IV, one of only two members of the team's nine-man rotation on Friday who had spent the entire season on a standard NBA contract in Philadelphia.
How does that starting five -- particularly the inclusion of Okeke -- have anything to do with Council, who was still in line for decent minutes off the bench?
The answer to that question is another one: how does it reflect on Council that in the last week, two different wings whose ink had barely dried on 10-day contracts had leapfrogged him in the pecking order on the wing and entered Nurse's starting five with just one decent performance? Okeke was not even replacing Council; he was replacing Oshae Brissett, another journeyman on a 10-day hardship contract. Brissett scoring 11 points and grabbing five rebounds in 43 minutes was enough for Nurse to feel comfortable demoting Council earlier this week.
With the sheer number of injuries the Sixers are facing, it would be impossible for Council to not receive steady doses of minutes now. But for him to not be able to crack the starting lineup under these circumstances -- and the threshold for a player to surpass him in that discussion being as low as this -- has been jarring.
Naturally, when an opportunity arose for skeptics to write off Council as a viable rotation piece moving forward, he followed up one of the worst games of his career -- a 1-for-11 shooting performance in Oklahoma City -- with the best game of his season on Friday in San Antonio, and possibly the best game of his NBA career. There is no better representation of the paradoxical nature of Council's NBA existence than that. In 22 minutes off the bench against the Spurs, Council scored a career-high 20 points and grabbed eight rebounds. He scored at the rim, shot the ball well from beyond the arc and got to the free throw line exceptionally well. It was an encapsulation of what the vision is for him long-term.
Ricky Council IV played his best game of the season on Friday night in San Antonio:
— Adam Aaronson's clips (@SixersAdamClips) March 22, 2025
20 points
6-9 FG
3-5 3P
5-6 FT
8 rebounds
Council played just over 24 minutes in the Sixers' loss to the Spurs. pic.twitter.com/vM9MLv5gSl
These flashes are tantalizing; the issue is they have also been fleeting this season. Council has repeatedly failed to take advantage of opportunities to earn the trust of his coaches and take a firm grasp of a rotation role in his second NBA season. Council acknowledged as much after a Sixers practice earlier this month, when he met with the media the day after scoring 40 points in a one-day assignment to the G League.
"I've just got to continue to prove myself so coaches can trust me on the floor," Council said. "For me personally, I like to win, playing [or] not playing, but I also like to play. One of my goals at the beginning of the season was to play consistent minutes. Obviously, hasn't happened, but like I said, first and foremost, I want to win."
A few ill-advised shots from Ricky Council IV lately: pic.twitter.com/0TPYjqLNGz
— Adam Aaronson's clips (@SixersAdamClips) March 14, 2025
Nurse has never outright stated that he has difficulty trusting Council; there is little upside to him doing so publicly. But he has been more pointed in his criticism of the second-year wing than most players on this season's team. A pessimist may say Nurse has clearly ran out of patience for Council. An optimist would argue that Nurse's demeanor when talking about Council is an indication that he knows there is significant room for growth.
Moments after Council talked about needing to make sure coaches can trust him on the floor, Nurse gave one of his blunt assessments of where things stood with Council.
"Ricky's just... we just want Ricky to play a little better," Nurse said. "He's just got to play a little bit more physical defense, rebounding -- he's a great athlete. I know he's only 6-foot-4, but we need help on the glass. He's got to provide some of that. Got to provide some help at the defensive end as well."
This is not theoretical conjecture on the part of Nurse or the people who have advocated for Council to receive greater runway for the Sixers. Council has impacted winning before. He made waves as an undrafted rookie last season, going from an afterthought to an intriguing developmental project to someone who actually turned a few close losses into close wins. It eventually earned him a four-year standard NBA contract.
In fact, it was ironic that the decision to start Okeke over Council came before a game in San Antonio, because the court at Frost Bank Center had been the site of a milestone of sorts in Council's career nearly a year prior.
The Sixers had a thrilling game in San Antonio last April. Tyrese Maxey's career-high 52 points led them to a win in double overtime, but that game was also Council's official arrival as a legitimate prospect for the Sixers. Still on a two-way contract at the time, Council swung the game in the Sixers' favor, scoring 11 points on 4-for-5 shooting in 22 minutes while notching four steals and three assists. One of those assists was one of the more impressive athletic feats you will see:
VOILA. pic.twitter.com/0mnh8iSWAm
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) April 8, 2024
Council is an exceptionally difficult prospect to quit on; even when he does things that drive a fan or coach crazy, he has the ability to follow it up by doing something most players could never dream of pulling off. Council's athleticism and outlier tools are just so incredibly apparent, the sort of traits that make a person think about how many ways they can propel him to greater heights.
If Council can fully buy into his role as a rebounder and a defender, find the right spots to attack the basket with force and knock down enough spot-up three-point shots -- all things he did in San Antonio on Friday night -- he will be an extremely valuable component of an NBA team for a long time. Can he actually get there? A strong final dozen games would go a long way, and to some degree, an impressive final few weeks would help Council salvage what has largely been an extremely disappointing sophomore campaign in the NBA.
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