By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)
Today is Cut Day. Cut Day is never a fun experience whether you’re trying out for your local rec team as a child, watching an episode of Hard Knocks, or even on the precipice of having your NBA dream come true. Nevertheless, Monday, October 26th marks the final deadline for NBA rosters to be trimmed down from the training limit of 20 players down to the regular season size of 15. By late afternoon, we’ll finally know who the Sixers will be taking the court with for the 2015-16 campaign.
The majority of teams have already made at least some of their roster cuts, generally considered a courtesy to the players, allowing them to clear waivers and latch on with another team before the season starts. The fact that the Sixers have yet to announce any decisions may indicate they are looking at that newly available pool of players to determine if they like any of those options better than the ones currently in-house. A reunion with the recently-released Ish Smith has been one rumor circulating the wire.
Philadelphia’s task is further complicated by the sheer overwhelming number of injuries up and down the roster. In addition to the known long-term absences of Joel Embiid, Carl Landry, Tony Wroten, and Kendall Marshall, the team has had to deal with Nik Stauskas’ tibia stress reaction, and most recently, the sprained MCL suffered by Robert Covington in Friday’s preseason finale. While the team certainly caught a break that Covington’s injury was not more severe (he’s only expected to miss around two weeks), his absence and the uncertainty of Stauskas’ availability may leave the team with as few as 9 healthy players for Wednesday’s season opener.
We already knew the injuries to the point guard position would likely force the team to go beyond Brett Brown’s ‘we’re keeping 3 point guards’ statement, a boon for one of T.J. McConnell or Scottie Wilbekin. Now, might Covington’s injury be the final straw that causes the team to finally cut ties with the veteran Carl Landry, eating another $6.5M of dead salary to get another healthy body into the mix (not to mention next year’s salary)? Any questions we might have will finally be answered today, at least until the Sixers are eligible for the hardship exemption three games into the season. Whatever happens, at least we’ve finally reached the point where we can count down in hours to actual NBA basketball making its return.
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