The Sixers were back on the court at Stockton today, and again the session was closed to the media until the last couple of minutes. Here is what I was able to gather from Wednesday’s early practice:
• I don’t know if the Sixers do this all of the time, but they are taking a page out of the Eagles’ book and blasting music during practice. I dug the three songs that were played after we walked into the gym. They were all released when most of the team’s players were either in diapers or not even born yet: “Still Not a Player” by Big Pun, “To Live and Die in L.A.” by Tupac, and “Regulate” by Warren G and Nate Dogg.
• When the rest of the team was going through a five-spot shooting drill, Jahlil Okafor worked on free throws at a side hoop with shooting coach Eugene Burroughs. He sunk a lot of his attempts, but I also once saw DeAndre Jordan shoot around 80 percent from the line in warmups. As for Okafor, there isn’t a glaring weakness in his form like Nerlens Noel’s elbow when he was entering the league. A 51 percent free-throw shooter at Duke, it will be interesting to see how the Sixers go about trying to improve Jah’s stroke on the fly.
• Speaking free throws, here is crappy video of Okafor and Noel shooting them:
Jah-Nerl from Rich Hofmann on Vimeo.
• Brett Brown said that Carl Landry isn’t scheduled to make it back on the practice floor for another 5-6 weeks. “It’s not close” was how he described the health status of his lone veteran.
• Also on the injury front, rookie forward Richaun Holmes rolled his ankle midway through the morning session. Brown says that he won’t play in tonight’s session (which is more 5-on-0 and scripting type of work) and he also doesn’t anticipate that Holmes will practice tomorrow as well.
• If the Sixers are going to be all they can be, Robert Covington needs to take another step forward. After getting signed directly out of the D-League last year, the 24-year-old Tennessee State product showed he more than belonged in the NBA with his effortless range. Both Covington and Brown have emphasized the next step in his development is putting the ball on the floor.
• Brown wants Covington to leverage his shooting ability: “I think a shooter’s best move should be an up-fake. You know, maybe catch-go, go-catch stuff. And so, [I want him] to really grow his ability to put it on the floor because the league is going to close out on him hot. They’re not going to want him to catch and shoot it.”
• Covington played the 4 almost exclusively in coverage, and Brown mentioned that he might experiment more with him at the position this year. The move would greatly help the Sixers’ spacing. Brown also said that Covington at Jerami Grant at the 3-4 spots would provide him with some positional versatility.
That’s it for another day. Sam Hinkie talked for about 15 minutes after practice, so I will start a recap of what the general manager/president of basketball operations had to say as soon as I file this post.
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