The Philadelphia 76ers are doing well to start the season and can claim a winning record despite not being at full strength yet. That said, they have cooled off since their glittering 4-0 start, having lost a string of highly winnable games of late.
Still, it’s worth noting that the 76ers still don’t have a clear answer when it comes to their backup center position. The coaching staff vacillated between resurgent veteran Andre Drummond and sophomore Adem Bona, playing by ear as to which player to draft each night. Unfortunately, that left rookie Johni Broome on the bench.
In fact, Broome has been assigned to the Delaware Blue Coats, the team’s G-League affiliate, although he going back and forth from there to the 76ers. While that’s not unusual for a second-round pick, the 76ers could have used him much better if the coaching staff had given him an early edge and shown him his calling card, which is different from his fellow big men on the roster – scoring.
Johni Broome would have made the 76ers bench even more impactful
After ranking at the absolute bottom of the league in bench scoring last season, the 76ers have now moved up to 15th in that area. Some of that increase should be credited to Quentin Grimes, who is having a very impressive start to the season for Philly.
However, their frontcourt scoring was virtually non-existent off the bench. With Trendon Watford moving to the starting unit, the 76ers will have one less player who can get a bucket in their second group.
Broome, whose main selling point after graduating was his scoring in the high and low posts, could have made some difference in that regard had he been given more playing time to showcase his skills in attack. During Summer League and in the preseason, he even dropped a three-point shot, something none of their big men aside from Joel Embiid can provide.
Of course, it’s way too early to call this a major mistake, but the 76ers will be able to better address some of their issues when it comes to varying their scoring attack by giving Broome more run from time to time. Hopefully that becomes a reality sooner rather than later, especially when Embiid has his usual rest cycles.
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