Sixers Trim Roster to 15

The deadline for the Sixers to cut the roster down to 15 players was today at 5 o’clock. The team did their work a little before then by cutting Pierre Jackson, Scottie Wilbekin, Jordan McRae, JP Tokoto, and Furkan Aldemir. This leaves the roster as follows:

Point Guard

Kendall Marshall

Tony Wroten

Isaiah Canaan

TJ McConnell

Shooting Guard

Hollis Thompson

Nik Stauskas

Jakarr Sampson

Small Forward

Robert Covington

Jerami Grant

Power Forward

Nerlens Noel

Richaun Holmes

Christian Wood

Carl Landry

Center

Jahlil Okafor

Joel Embiid

There are no really earthshattering surprises here. Going into the preseason I expected Tokoto and Aldemir to make it instead of McConnell and Landry. However, Tokoto was subpar in preseason and Aldemir just did not show enough improvement to convince the team of his long term usefulness. Meanwhile, McConnell looked great in the preseason and the Sixers apparently value Landry’s veteran presence despite his injured wrist. I still probably would have taken Aldemir over Landry. I think the strength of the Sixers locker room is enough to withstand letting Landry go but I understand keeping Landry due to the fact that is owed some significant guaranteed salary for next season that the team may hope to unload once is healthy. Still, if the team was going to keep a “veteran leadership guy”, I would have much preferred just resigning Luc Richard Mbah a Moute to a minimum deal. Regardless, these are small gripes and I generally agree with the way the roster looks.

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It is also important to remember that Sixers can apply for the NBA’s hardship exception to gain a 16^th roster spot once 4 players (Embiid, Covington, Marshall, Wroten or Landry) miss 3 games. They won’t have that extra spot for the first few games, but I would expect them to use this spot to their advantage to bring in another young guy who has been cut from other teams like former Arizona guard Nik Johnson or former Missouri guard Jabari Brown. They could even use that spot to bring back Furkan for a little while to sure up some of the front court depth. Still, even with the hardship exception, the Sixers will be missing some good players and might have a rocky start to the season.

This will be an interesting year for the Sixers. You hope to see a little bit more roster stability and less in season turnover now that they have some more talent, but that will be something to keep an eye on. I also hope to see some of the young guys step up and improve this year but only time will tell. In the meantime, this is the Sixers roster so now we just wait for them to roll out the ball against Boston on Wednesday night.