It's no secret the 76ers are a big team.
"We are huge," Brett Brown so appropriately declared at his annual luncheon before Training Camp began this week.
Related: Brown: Simmons not passing up shots in practice
Brown knows his guys are big and their bread and butter will be "smash mouth offense and bully ball defense."
You can argue either way, but I'll contend the 76ers improved from a season ago, especially in defense and depth—two areas that weren't good for the 51-win team that just missed the Eastern Conference Finals because of four very unlucky bounces.
That being said, it would be naive to ignore two key members the Sixers lost—JJ Redick and Jimmy Butler—were two of their better, if not best, perimeter players from a season ago.
Who's going to take those shots?
It could be Tobias Harris. It could be Josh Richardson. Mike Scott and James Ennis III have the ability to drain a three off the bench. Maybe Matisse Thybulle can be the 2019-20 version of Landry Shamet. Zhaire Smith never showed a hesitancy to shoot. Don't sleep on Al Horford's perimeter game either. If I recall correctly, he made a big bucket or two in the past against the team that currently employs him.
But what about the big guy, Joel Embiid?
He stayed about an hour after Friday's training camp practice, a lot of which he spent getting a good sweat in shooting three after three after three.
That got me wondering—what was he hoping to accomplish?
"Nothing," Embiid said, which seemed confusing at first since he really put in some good, impressive work. "Like I've always said before, I don't really like shooting three's, but this year since we gonna have Ben (Simmons) willing to take those three's, maybe he's gonna put my game more inside. So, I'm hoping he will shoot them so I do my job, what I do inside."
Embiid shares the thoughts of many Sixers fans, so I'll take his word that he's really trying to avoid the three-point line. Embiid has stated many times before that he doesn't enjoy shooting three-pointers. He wants to play that "smash mouth" basketball Brown spoke of prior to camp.
Through three seasons, the first of which was abbreviated to 31 games, Embiid is averaging 3.6 three's attempted per game and 1.1 made. Altogether, he has shot 31.5 percent from distance.
It's not his strength. It's not his game. But, if Simmons doesn't fire up three's, maybe Embiid will need to reluctantly continue taking shots from behind the arc. He's certainly capable of making them, as was evident in his very good post practice workout Friday afternoon in Camden.
