I'm Sorry's Meg Si and you're listening to the seventy six Ers Insider's podcast. This podcast is part of the seventy six Ers podcast network, presented by Stern and Cohen Law.
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We have grit and fight in us. Call the workers Compensation law firm of Stern and Cohen or visit their site Sterncohenlaw dot com. The consultation is free. Stern and Cohen are the official partners of the seventy six Ers. They'll go ring the insurance company's bell. Welcome back to the seventy six Ers Insiders podcast. It's actually a season premiere for us ahead of the twenty twenty four twenty five NBA season. Matt Murphy and Lauren Rosen. We will
talk about training camp. We will reflect back to media day and a little bit of everything else going on with the Sixers. But first things first, Lauren Rosen, how are the Bahamas the site of the Sixers training camp this season?
Harphi? It is so good to be with you, and it is tough to complain when you're looking out at the ocean. I know the Sixers enjoying this change of scenery compared to Philadelphia, compared perhaps even into training camps pass. It's the first time, at least in my tenure, that we've been somewhere tropical for a training camp. So I know people are enjoying it. But it's an interesting juxtaposition with all the hard work that's going on on the court during the day.
Year two of Nick Nurse as the Sixers head coach. Fort Collins, Colorado was last year's training camp, and when it comes to the Bahamas, I know something that Nick has said this week is that when the trip first started he didn't have that much time to even walk around outside. He said he might at some point this week if people have been paying attention to the media availabilities with players and with coach. If they have not, they will hear you divulge many of those details throughout
the show today. The reason that we are starting with training camp and then reflecting back on media Day is because you are coming to us live from the Bahamas, where inside that ballroom gym, some of the sweatshirts that the coaches have been wearing are the ball wins. That is a phrase. I know it has a lot to do with rebounding and literally just getting your hands on the basketball, But what else have you noticed about mantras and those hoodies.
Well, it's what you said, right, And what I've deduced is the idea of the ball wins. And we'll have to talk a little bit more with head coach Nick Nurse about this. He always has mantras with deeper meaning and I'm going to do my best to articulate what I've seen. But to me, the ball wins means literally, like you said, rebounds, but also deflections, forcing turnovers, reducing
your own turnovers. It's the idea of taking care of the ball for as long as possible, right and maximizing the amount of time that the team is able to have the ball right. The team with the most possession throughout the game tends to have a positive yield.
Right.
So the idea is, whether you're on offense or defense, you're doing everything you can to take care of the ball. And that's been an emphasis all week long.
The reason that I kind of took you down that path with it was there was a question about Caleb Martin's impact and like steals per game numbers, and where the coach went with it was actually first things, first defensive rebound and then maybe some deflections that lead to steals. On the defensive end, the Sixers were one of the best teams in the NBA in steals, but also when it comes to that deflections stat that the coaching staff
cares greatly about. And then it's less of a camp about installing things or even getting back to the basics, and more of a camp about building off of what was established in year one. A lot of the coaching staff is the same. Obviously, the leader in Nurse, from an execution standpoint, that has been one of the focuses.
For sure, and today it became a focus because coach Nurse said following day's practice, the team's third official practice as a group, that the execution is farther along than the execution was a year ago today right, saying that this is a team that is finding ways to gel and execute complex concepts quicker than he perhaps expected them
to at this point. And it was interesting because he said he didn't know exactly why it's coming along as quick as it has, but he likes the veteran presence on this team, the amount of depth thereies on this team, the options that he can go to, which in theory,
right complicates things a bit. But despite all the options, which I know we'll talk about in a second, and despite all that depth, which we'll talk about in a second, this is a group that has taken rather quickly to the concepts that the coaching staff is giving them, which of course is exactly what you want in a training camp environment.
Take us through what some of the like when the reporters get led in, Like what are you seeing? I know, it looks like, uh, college's how it looks. It looks at them.
You see the ballroom, you see the photos, you see all the content the sixers are putting out. That's how it looks. It's really cool. I think you were about to say, we're about to talk about Battle for Atlantis.
Well, yeah, that And then in March madness when sometimes managers for college teams are taping down like lines from the court onto those carpeted areas. I mean that is where the courts have been dropped down. You think back to the NBA bubble to some of the teams, the practice courts were aligned in these types of ballrooms. But from an execution standpoint, like, what are you seeing them work on towards the end? I know a lot of
it is just shooting stations and things like that. We can't really go into too much more detail, but what are you seeing when everybody gets let in?
Well, a Nick Nurse training camp is extremely lively, right. It has been well documented that DJ Ghost of of course Sixers in Arena and Philadelphia Fame, has come on pretty close to, if not full time, with this coaching staff. He is wherever they are. He is responsible for cultivating the environment that Nick Nurse said a year ago when he took this job that he wanted to produce every day high energy, giving energy, pouring as much energy into
the space as possible. So you're hearing loud music. There are guys at every basket. There are two courts, two baskets per court, So sometimes in a more traditional training facility situation. Two courts means eight baskets because they'll have the two sideline baskets on each side as well. Do you know what I mean? There are eight places to shoot here. There are only four, but they're making good use of all four. It's been fascinating. They've installed scoreboards
in the ballroom. The court is obviously regulation size, there are two of them. They put some makeshift stands around the arena so that or the arena around the ballroom so that executives, coaches, support staff have somewhere to observe. It's been extremely professional. You kind of forget where you are when you're in that ballroom because there are obviously there are no windows, so you don't really know what time of day it is. You don't really know that
you're in a tropical environment. Coach Nurse and his staff have done a great job of taking the energy of a traditional Nick Nurse Philadelphia seventy six ers practice and bringing it to Paradise.
One of the things that he said was, we've got everything we need here, so when they're in those sessions, and the music has become a big part of it. It's not just with the Sixers, but it's from Nurses background. We'll have to talk to DJ Ghost at some point maybe about some of the finer details of this thing, but we'll have them on the podcast at some point to maybe go deeper on this. But I saw the Lakers have a DJ before and after practice Lebron James
and JJ Reddick. JJ said Lebron wanted it, and JJ said, now, nobody else can have the ox cord. It's just in the hands of the DJ before and after can Sixers players. They can make requests song requests, right, And the.
Coolest thing that I've noticed DJ ghosts now has always did, by the way, even before Coach Nurse and his staff took over in Philadelphia, DJ Ghost has an understanding of each player's favorite artists or favorite type of music.
Right.
So, if you've ever gone to a Sixers game super early and you've watched players warm up, the music that's being when DJ Ghost is on the ones and twos is exactly what that player wants to hear. He knows. Just for example, the first thing that popped into my head Tyrese Maxie loves Gunna, So anytime that Tyre's is out there by himself. That's what he's hearing. Right, anytime that he's preparing us to be hearing, I think, because we're in the Bahamas, I think of Buddy Heald. But
Buddy Held listened to a lot of Caribbean music. He listened a lot of afrobeats, and DJ Ghost would give that to him, even though Buddy Heeld was just on the team for a couple of months. Right, So very cool to see the way that it's not just a DJ playing music. It's a DJ playing specialized music for each player, for each scenario. There are certain songs that the team warms up to. There are certain songs they cooled down to, or that they shoot round to. Right,
there's a system there. It's not just about music. It's very intentional and it's been fascinating to watch as DJ Ghost has really become a part of this ecosystem.
You mentioned Tyrese Maxey. Before we get into some of the new players, some of the depth, some of the rookies, let's talk about Maxie as a leader. It's an emerging theme. It's one that carries over from his fourth season into what will be his fifth NBA season. How have you seen that play out? In camp, He's.
Been so comfortable and so confident using his voice. And for those of us, you and me, both you and I, both who have had the pleasure of watching Tyrese's professional career from day one, No, this is something that has grown over time. As a rookie, he was relatively quiet, right, always bringing energy, always laughing. I remember him spending all a time with Paul Reid and Isaiah Joe chatting with
one another, but certainly not addressing the team. And watching the progression year over year of Tyree's feeling comfortable using his voice to direct the entire room. Seeing him arrive at the point that he's at at this training camp has been fabulous to see, really impressive stuff, Coach Nurse.
Last year, Coach Nurse talked about it following the second team practice on Wednesday, said that last year at training camp he observes Tyree's communicating with the team and he said, ooh, We've got a long way to go in terms of growing Tyrese Maxi's communication. And he said, probably about a year ago to date yesterday Tuesday, Wednesday of the first week of October, that Tyree's has come leaps and bounds he's extremely comfortable. The two of them have a really
communicative relationship. Coach Nurse talked about the fact that Tyrese and Nurse had to sit down together a long conversation ahead of practice yesterday about what Tyres needed to do differently, what types of communication systems they were hoping that he would be able to implement, and Nick Nurse said that Tyrese was able to produce that minutes later in that practice. So you know that the two of them are communicating well. Again,
we talked about it. It's corny, but people always talk about the point guard as the voice of the coach on the floor. Watching as Nick Nurse delivers his messaging to Tyrese Maxey, Tyres Maxie delivers Nick Nurse is messing to the guys on the floor now, two of whom at least are future Hall of Famers, if not more. It has been very fluid. It has been very easy this year. It doesn't feel forced when Tyrese takes control of the gym, and that's a big deal for a
twenty three year old, first time All Star. Very cool stuff.
And when we talk about floor generals, Nick Nurse, I was going to wait to talk about this, and I'll cover more of the logistics on it at the end. But his background in Iowa, he was a point guard on a high school state championship team. He was an extension of his head coach. I'll have a full feature coming out about Carol Iowa, Nick Nurse's hometown and the intersections between the two. But they won the state championship
in nineteen eighty five. People all around his life say they could see it as an extension of the coach on the floor that he may go on to be a coach. It was pretty obvious in all sports. Quarterbacking the football team, pitching and playing middle infield in baseball, and then as the point guard on the basketball team. So he's been in Tyrese Maxie's shoes. He went on to be a four year starter at You and I Northern Iowa, so he has experience firsthand experience with these
types of things. Maxie's training camp parastyle. If he keeps it, he says he can see a little bit. He was joking that he's going to grow even more on the court because it's not in his face as much. I know he mentioned that.
Yeah, his were birds in the hours, but he said it, How good is he give me this year? Now that he doesn't have any air in his face? So we'll see, we'll see how long he keeps it. No, he's been fantastic qualitatively, quantitatively, shooting the ball well, playing really hard. He's doing everything you want him to do. And if you've been following Tyrese for a while, that's what you've come to expect.
And if anything else jumps out to you from what the guys have been saying, please feel free to throw it in. On the opposite end of the maxie spectrum would be a Jared McCain, a rookie, which as we talk after the Thursday practice of camp, Joel Embiid had some high praise for first round pick Jared McCain.
The guys, I've been looking good. Probably our best player has been John McCain, you know, which is pretty good, right. I think everybody trying to get on the same page.
There's a lot to learn.
We got a brand new team, so I think a lot you know, we just you know, we we change a few stuff from last year. So yeah, but he's been a good so far. MANI he compete, Uh Mayni is tough compete. Great shot, I mean shot maker, MANI shot, he's been shooting. He's been shooting the ball at triming well, great energy. Uh, thank you guys. He has a pretty good chance. I don't want to put the expectations out there, but you know, I kind of I gotta see, you know,
I gotta see more. But so far it's been good.
Very high praise for Jared McCain from across the roster and his coach since the beginning of the week, and Jared was honest at Summer League Matt Murphy, I know you and I talked about this a lot on our summer league streams, about the fact that he knew there
would be a learning curve coming into the NBA. He knew that there would be a learning curve when he started playing at Duke, and people will remember if you watched his due career that he did have a slower start compared perhaps to the finish that he had of his first season, first and only season as a Duke Blue Devil. So that awareness that he had that maybe there was going to be a bit of a learning curve, and the way that he's clearly attacked it since Summer
League is extremely impressive. And again, don't take it for me. Take it from Eric Gordon, Take it from Tyrese Maxey, take it from Joel Embiid, take it from Nick Nurse, all of whom have agreed that Jared McCain has not been a standout rookie at this training camp. He has been a standout player at this training camp. And I like what Nick Nurse shared after the second he was standing out on the defensive end as well. And of course when you draft Jared McCain, you're probably not drafting
him primarily for his defensive abilities. But what coach Nurse has always said is if you can find a way to compete, you can find a way onto the floor, right And if Jared is competing on both sides of the ball early in this camp, that's a great sign for the growth that he knows, he's known that he has needed to demonstrate in order to be a key part of this very, very deep team. It's going to be hard to crack this rotation in memory.
McCain mentioned as a standout. It goes down the roster gershan Ya Vacelli has been talked about a returner like Kelly Oubre Junior has been talked about. I know from the fan base perspective, everyone's excited about Andre Drummond being in the front court, a front court option for this team. Behind Joel Embiid. There's a bunch of veteran guards in the mix. Does it just feel like when you look around that ballroom that this team has depth galore?
Well, and what you have to think about at training camp now, and for those that might not have followed NBA roster evolution as closely, we went from a pair of two way contracts to a trio of two way contract plus at training camp at least anyone on an exhibit Exhibit ten contract is with the big team, Guys that project to spend a good amount of time with
the Bluecoats during the regular season. So twenty plus players in the mix every dayDay, that's about a third more than you'll see traditionally, for example, a practice on the road during the regular season. So there are more bodies, first of all. Second of all, you have to think about who those bodies are. And as you said, a lot of the new faces on this team are bona
fide respected veterans in THEBA. Reggie Jackson is someone that's going to fight his way into this rotation, and he is someone with quite the resume, right, I mean, anyone you think about, like you said, just guards. Kyle Lowry is part of that depth, the rookies that are competing, the Jared mccains of the world. So exactly right. So I did a bad job of doing that the spectrum
I was trying to paint for you. I did a good bad job of making it linear, right, but on a spectrum from Jared McCain to Kyle Lowry or Eric Gordon in terms of sort of representing the two age ends of this league as it currently stands. There are so many options and head coach Nick Nurse discussed that as well after practice number three when he thinks about putting the puzzle pieces together. Nick Nurse famous for trying new things. Try something. If it works, you keep it
in the toolkit. If it doesn't work, you throw it away. He has so many different combinations to keep track up right, because there are a lot of new faces, a few returning faces, some players that he's worked with in the past, but there are so many new faces that are qualified for the jobs that they're all seeking. And now he has to figure out what the best combinations are of the excess of options that he finds himself with as a result of his team's deep.
And like Nurse, like Lowry, Reggie Jackson is an NBA champion with the Nuggets. I was reminded on media Day when he mentioned it that he went to a finals when he was with the Thunder very early at to start his career. I'm glad you mentioned the two way contracts as well, because what I'll say to that is that they have two very experienced players occupying two of the three slots here in early October, in Jeff Dalton Junior,
someone that is very trusted by coach Nurse. They added Lester Kenionez, who I remember and a lot of others do too, that he scored thirteen points for the Warriors in an NBA game in Philadelphia last February. So to have those two guys plus rookie Justin Edwards on two way contracts during training camp is very solid. But media Day, all these players you mentioned a lot of them have close friendships from when they played together on other teams.
Drummond and Reggie Jackson a great example of that. When they were with Detroit. We had both of them on this podcast. If people want to go back in the archives and listen, there are other examples. Caleb Martin has a couple with Kyle Lowry and Kelly Oubray Junior because his twin Cody, played with Kelly in Charlotte. So that was something I took away from media Day. What else? What did you take away from this past Monday at this point, Well.
What I wondered on Monday. We've been able to see over these last few days, right again, lots of new faces, but a lot of connections among the new faces, guys that played with each other on other teams. I'm thinking of Kyle Lowry and Caleb Martin very recently shared the floor in Miami together. Martin has not played for Nurse, but Lowry has played for Nurse a ton and just
played with Martin. Right, So you're seeing these guys help each other make these learning curves perhaps flatter because of how well they know one another and how they are able to translate for one another in this new environment. Even an Andre Drummond, who was with the Sixers under Doc Rivers, now is back with some of his teammates.
He's very familiar with Joel. He's familiar with Tyree's but he has a new coach, so now he has the teammates that he's familiar with onboarding him to a new system. It's almost met like the concept of the six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Right. These people, even if they haven't all played together on the same team, have all played with each other at some point, or they had an
agent in common or a former coach in common. There's a lot of continuity for the amount of new faces that are playing together.
Yeah, just that comfort level around the Penn Medicine Philadelphia seventy six years training complex. For media day, it was a very normal media day and not just new play. Also, Oubra in year two was just very comfortable at it and year two with the Sixers, and I know that's carried into training camp. And then Andre Drummond was a standout for me just personality wise, kind of being reminded of how he operates with the media, how he operates
with his teammates. And I didn't spend it enough time with probably everyone on the roster, but the time that I was with Andre Drummond and even in the social media content, can we give a shout out to the Sixers accounts right now with some of the stuff that they've been cooking up. Drummond has been the star in some of the different trends and things that they're doing, so the fans have gotten to see it, but I
saw some of it behind the scenes too at Media Day. Now, there was the unfortunate news during media Day about the passing of the Kembe Mutombo, and it literally happened when Darryl Mory and Nick Nurse were addressing the media, so we heard Darryl Mory's thoughts on it. We later heard Joel Embiid's thoughts on how important to Kenba Matumbo was to them and to the basketball universe. The NBA hits close to home for the Sixers because he obviously spent
parts of multiple seasons here. Also was in Houston when Daryl Moury was there earlier in his career. So definitely a somber note on that day, but it is nice to remember all of the great things about to kem Bay as well. I know we each can share something that relates directly relates to his life and his career.
I only worked with Di Kimbay once in a former life, I was a production runner for ESPN, which was just a fabulous way to start a sports media career because I got to see everything and I got to meet a lot of people, even though my job really was stalking the snack table, getting coffee, making sure people got to where they needed to get to at the right time.
And every once in a while I would be exposed to somebody like the Kimbe Matumbo, and I will never forget the one time that I was able to work with him. It was very brief, but he made it a priority to not just speak to everybody in the room.
But what made him special in my memory, was that he spoke to every single person in the room, whether you were an NBA executive, an NBA player, a TV executive, a TV producer, or a twenty one or twenty two year old production assistant who stood mostly in the corner.
Did I in that setting? He made every single person feel equally important to him, and I will never forget that that is something really special, rare in our industry, and I think rare in many industries that someone of his stature, with a resume like his, with a wealth of life experience and tons of people and entities that needed his time, made time for everyone, and he treated
everyone with respect. And I've always had an appreciation for my experience with to Kimbey, but obviously now it feels more poignant and it's something that I want to take with me as I grow. And so I'm just very grateful that I was able to even like cross pads with him for a short amount of time and cool also to hear about someone like Daryl Moury, who cross
pads with him four years eight hut having a similar experience. Right, it seems like the experience that I had, though small, was a universal one for those that interacted with to Kimbae.
Well, thank you for sharing that. Of course, his time playing with the Sixers was the champion at the finals run in two thousand and one and then into the next season as well, an all star season for him. And yeah, you just hear all these great stories similar to similar to what the tone of what you just said about, maybe a radio station reaching out to him and then him giving forty minutes of his time or
on it, who knows, probably a busy day. I don't have a personal story to share, but I think back to a game that I was fortunate to fill in on the radio call of against the Raptors just last season when Joel Embiid blocked Pascal Siakam and did the finger wag and passed it up to Maxis. It's like the first play that is on my reel and my website, and I included the part of Joel doing the finger wag, which is of course the signature celebration of to Kembe Matumbo,
who was a size twenty two shoe. And the Sixers are about to play one of the other very few basketball players with that size shoe. Taco Fall, plays for the New Zealand Breakers, which is their opponent for the first preseason game on October seventh. A lot of people know Taco Fall. He is seven foot five point twenty five without sneakers. He wears a size twenty two like the Kembe, Like Shaquille O'Neill, will Purdue, Bob Lanier are the others. I had to look up Victor Wembinyama. He's
only a size twenty and a half sneaker. But yeah, the preseason will be here in short order, and it starts with a non NBA opponent in the New Zealand Breakers. The only other home preseason game on the six game slate is nine days after that against the Brooklyn Nets. But you and I did a full schedule breakdown podcast that people can also listen back to on this seventy six Ers Insiders feed. But six preseason games a long slate and most of it is a way from home.
But people should take advantage of coming out to those two home games, including a chance to see Taco Fall and the.
Breakers absolutely and Matt Murphy. Before we wrap, I want to get back to you and one of those away preseason games, the aforementioned trip back to Iowa for the seventy six Ers to take on the Minnesota Timberwolves in Des Moines, a neutral site for a preseason matchup with tons of lore. There's tons of there there and you've done a deep dive. So share what's coming on the seventy six Ers podcast network and sixers dot com as it relates to Nick Nurse's roots.
Yeah, so I spent I don't know, like three days in Carol, Iowa in August, and it will be a podcast here, So be on the lookout for those your keywords Iowa, Nick Nurse. We're going to have other conversations with Nick Nurse soon and throughout the season on this platform, but Iowa will be the theme of this one in particular. There's also going to be a long form article and some social media posts with some of the quotes and everything.
But it was just embedded during his golf course grand opening of Carol National Golf Club, which I think the way that I'll tee up this story as a tease is just that in the time that I was there, I watched a basketball shooting clinic at Kemper Catholic School, his alma mater. I attended multiple days of the grand opening of Carol National Golf Club, which is formerly Carol Country Club that Nick Nurse belonged to with his family. Well, it's the course they grew up going to. It's just
think of your local golf course and that's it. And he purchased it when to help with the finances and keeping it going last year and then the there were multiple days of a concert series that Nick Nurse participated in. So the details will be in the story, but really cool experience that I got to share with him, and he's got he comes from a family with nine kids,
he's the youngest. So there's a lot to this story and I'm really excited since the runway has been so long for people to read it and to listen to it, and.
So listen, it's Eagles season, it's playoff season for the Phillies. But if you're going to tune in for the seventy and listen, if you're listening to us, we know you're locked in on six Ers preseason. That to me is the game that I have earmarked as potentially most exciting just from a storyline perspective. Very much looking forward to seeing head coach Nick Nurse matchup with Timberwolves head coach
Chris Finch. They go way, way way back, and that'll be a part of this long form storytelling that we're going to reintroduce any day now. So Matt, thank you for your hard work on that. I know it's going to be awesome and looking forward to diving in with you there.
So this coming out kind of in conjunction with some interviews we've had with the new roster for the six yeers season, so we're in full swing preseason time for the games, but regular season time for the seventy six Ers. Insiders podcast. Apparently that game and I was going to be packed. So as you're trying to get ready for that game, to watch that game, to listen to that game, this will be some additional content to help you prepare
for the six Yer season. I think there's who knows, I'm basing this off nothing but Caitlin Clark the WNBA seasons over she grew up going to games there. I have no idea, but apparently it's going to be packed in Des Moines for this Sixers Timberwolves preseason game. And then just be on the lookout for those other podcasts as well with not just the coach but the players coming up. And the regular season opener is Wednesday, October twenty third against the Milwaukee Bucks in Philadelphia, so that
is just around the corner in a few weeks. Lauren Rosen from the Bahamas, thank you so much. Looking forward to more of your great content as we are really we're doing this thing, so.
Thank you, Thank you. Matt Verphy, always a pleasure