Don't look now, but the Sixers have won four of their last five games, including a strong road win over the Chicago Bulls on Sunday afternoon powered by the returning Joel Embiid. The Sixers are now in the midst of an unusual four-day stretch without any games.
The day is Tuesday, which means the time has come for a weekly Sixers mailbag. Once again, these questions came from my new followers over at Bluesky. Let's get to it:
From @adrienxpinto.bsky.social‬:What is the Sixers' best starting lineup for you? Best closing lineup?
Generally speaking, I am of the view that closing lineups should largely be determined by matchups and which players have things going within a particular game. They are also far more likely to be impacted by other sorts of game contexts (a team may need extra defense or floor spacing, an additional ball-handler, etc.) than starting lineups, which are sometimes more symbolic than some recognize.
Meanwhile, it goes without being said that when the Sixers are at full health, head coach Nick Nurse will be starting Tyrese Maxey, Paul George and Joel Embiid. Given Kelly Oubre Jr.'s recent stretch of strong play, capped off by a brilliant showing in Chicago, it seems safe to assume that Nurse will keep him in the mix for his defensive versatility and rim pressure.
That leaves one spot remaining, and Nurse has options across the positional spectrum. Ahead of the start of the season, Caleb Martin was expected to be a starting wing for this team, but Martin's offensive struggles have been so significant that he is now firmly out of that picture for the time being.
Nobody would have expected before the season began that Guerschon Yabusele and Jared McCain would each have valid cases to be nightly starters for this team, but here we are. Yabusele got the nod alongside Embiid in Chicago, giving the Sixers plenty of size down low and enabling them to have above-average frames across the board. The Sixers believe Yabusele's improved three-point stroke makes him a viable frontcourt partner for Embiid. But the Bulls happened to play super-small-ball to counter the Sixers' size, and Nurse responded by playing a lot more of McCain than Yabusele:
Adding McCain to Maxey, George, Embiid and Oubre gives the Sixers their strongest possible five-man grouping. It adds an additional ball-handler to the mix, which makes it easier to Nurse to weaponize Maxey and George as off-ball threats. Having another perimeter creator also lightens Embiid's workload, and McCain represents another guard with which Embiid can operate effective two-man actions.
NBA head coaches often resist platoon-type designations in their starting lineups, but that will not deter me from advocating for it: my answer is that the Sixers should toggle between Yabusele and McCain in their fifth starting slot depending on matchup.
For example: after their Friday night home game against the Indiana Pacers, the Sixers' next two opponents will be the Charlotte Hornets and Cleveland Cavaliers. Generally speaking, Charlotte starts one big and four perimeter-oriented players. That might be a matchup where McCain makes more sense than Yabusele, whose muscle is less valuable against that sort of roster. Cleveland, meanwhile, famously starts two behemoth bigs in Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen. Clearly, that is a matchup which would call for a start for Yabusele over McCain.
MORE:Embiid finds peak form thanks to Maxey partnership
From @70sixers .bsky.social: What would keeping Yabusele next year look like? I know they can't sign him to a big contract because they signed him to the minimum but do you think there's a path to keeping him?
Yabusele's free agency will be particularly interesting should he remain on his current trajectory as a quality rotation piece. Because he is on a veteran's minimum contract and the Sixers will only have non-Bird rights on him, the amount of money the Sixers can offer Yabusele will be extremely limited -- perhaps too restrictive for them to make a competitive offer -- unless they use one of their cap exceptions. This is the exact situation they found themselves in with Oubre's free agency last summer, who they brought back by giving the entirety of their mid-level exception.
An additional wrinkle is that because Yabusele will finish 2024-25 with three or fewer years of NBA experience, he will be a restricted free agent. This is massively advantageous for the Sixers, who would have the right to match any offer sheet Yabusele signs with another team and retain his services.
With the obvious caveat that it is only the second week of December and things can always change drastically between now and June 30, 2025, it certainly feels like keeping Yabusele in the fold should be a priority for the Sixers.
From @maryoverfield.bsky.social‬: Who do you feel is the most likely Sixer to be moved before the trade deadline?
KJ Martin would have been the most obvious answer imaginable here, but his terrific play thus far has at least incited conversations about whether the Sixers would be better off hanging onto the fifth-year forward on a contract which was designed to make him an attractive trade piece.
If the Sixers were to decide KJ Martin was a part of their future, the easiest player in the same salary range to move would be Oubre, whose contract contains a player option for next season in the ballpark of a reasonable $8 million. But KJ Martin is thriving and Oubre now looks like the best version of himself. Could that mean Caleb Martin finds himself on the trading block in the first season of a four-year contract which was widely-regarded as a below-market deal?
I would still bet against Caleb Martin being the odd man out for a few reasons. The length of his contract makes him more appealing to a small subset of competitive teams, but less attractive for younger teams which have little use for his services. KJ Martin is 23 years old with upward mobility and Oubre is capable of increasing offensive workload for a team with less talent, but the 29-year-old Caleb Martin is a known commodity and not an enthralling one for most teams.
But with all of that being said, Caleb Martin has done far more to prove he is capable of being a core contributor for a competitive playoff team than KJ Martin and Oubre combined, with nearly twice as many career postseason minutes as his two counterparts on the wing. The Sixers shopping him in the near future would in itself be a red flag to potential buyers, and it would be an example of selling an asset at its lowest point of value.
Luckily for the Sixers, they do not need to decide which of Oubre and the two Martins will be used as their primary trade bait yet. But that time is approaching sooner than one might think.
MORE:What should Sixers focus on in second "training camp" this week?
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