A Furkan Win for the Summer Sixers

By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)

The Summer Sixers moved to 1-1 with a 76-62 victory over the Celtics Tuesday night, but as we all know, results in these games are secondary to what these young guys are showing glimpses of out on the floor. Here are my thoughts from the most recent contest.

https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js1. Stretch Four-kan? (h/t @wshareNBA) Watching Furkan Aldemir for half a season last year (and yes, Jazz announcers, he was on the team last year which you got wrong again yesterday), it became readily apparent Aldemir could rebound, set screens, and do practically nothing else. With a suddenly crowded frontcourt, it seemed the only possible reason Furkan would stick around this year was the guaranteed money on his contract, and even that isn’t a sure thing for a Sixers team paying JaVale McGee $12M this season. However, as Derek Bodner has featured, Aldemir has been spending considerable time working on extending his range. It was only one game, but we actually see some dividends from that hard work Tuesday night, as Furkan hit not one, not two, but three triples on his way to 11 points, 14 rebounds, and 3 blocked shots. If Aldemir can offer any semblance of floor spacing, it would greatly enhance his chances of sticking not only on the team, but within the rotation this season. We’ll have to wait and see whether this performance was a sign of things to come or a flash in the pan.

Richaun Holmes just called “knock down” before shooting that last three. He did indeed knock it down. — Andy Bailey (@AndrewDBailey) July 8, 2015

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2. The Richaun Holmes Love-Fest Continues

I checked out prices for the Richaun Holmes bandwagon after Monday’s game, but Tuesday night saw me buy the tickets and climb aboard. Holmes only hit 1 of 5 threes, but his stroke looks good, and he recorded another 2 blocks in just 18 minutes of action. On one occasion, the second-round pick stole an offensive rebound basically out of a Celtic’s hands, and threw down a dunk while yelling out to the dozen or so people seated on that side of the arena. He has that fire, that swagger, whatever you want to call it, and his game perfectly complements that of Jahlil Okafor. I’m all in.

Spacing that’s not exactly that’s optimal for a post scorer pic.twitter.com/qNDhEDc38L

— Derek Bodner (@DerekBodnerNBA) July 7, 2015

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js3. Big Jah Needs Spacing Until Furkan got hurt, the Sixers were shooting absolutely atrociously from behind the arc, still finishing just 6-21 on the game. As a result, the Celtics were ignoring Sixers on the perimeter to, at times, literally triple-team Okafor down in the paint. Jahlil had a solid enough effort with 13 points and 9 rebounds, struggling some on defense, while again showing off some nifty moves when he did have space to work offensively. Overall, I don’t think we’re really going to be able to get a fair look at what Okafor can do until he’s certainly by legitimate shooters like Covington, Hollis, and maybe Stauskas.

4. Could a point guard battle emerge?

Deonte Burton showed off a few nice drives and a great chasedown block in his 12 minutes of action. The one downside of his game was the 4 personal fouls committed in that short period of time, but he has shown enough through two games to warrant some more burn. With point guards an endangered species on the Sixers roster, it will be interesting to see if Burton can wrest any additional time from ‘Charlie Hustle’ TJ McConnell Thursday night. The Sixers will face Utah’s summer league squad then, so at the very least, the announcers will be well-informed about one of the teams on the court.