76ers Notes: Joel Embiid, Mike Gansey, Nick Nurse, lineup possibilities

The 76ers spent the summer adding LeBron James and Jaylen Brown to an already talented roster.

Perhaps just as important? Joel Embiid is apparently having his healthiest offseason in quite some time.

Sixers president of basketball operations Mike Gansey told ESPN’s Kevin Negandhi that Embiid has been able to spend the summer working rather than rehabbing and is “extra motivated” for the 2026-27 season.

“Joel is great,” Gansey said, via Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. “This is like the first summer I think in a while that he’s been healthy, so he’s been in the gym working out. He’s been lifting weights. He’s extra motivated.”

That’s obviously significant for Philadelphia. Embiid has battled knee problems for much of the past three seasons, appearing in just 19 games in 2024-25 and 38 last season.

Gansey said Embiid wants to play as much as possible this year, though the Sixers will develop a workload plan once the NBA schedule is released.

And while James and Brown were the splashy summer additions, Gansey made it clear Philadelphia still views Embiid as central to everything it hopes to accomplish.

“We have LeBron and Jaylen, but Joel’s going to be as important as those guys,” Gansey said.

Making all the stars fit

Of course, that’s where things get interesting.

James, Brown, Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe are all accustomed to having significant offensive responsibilities. Somebody is going to have to sacrifice touches. Probably everybody.

Gansey said he went back and watched James and Embiid playing together for Team USA at the 2024 Olympics and thought the pairing worked “pretty, pretty well.”

“Any given night, anyone can be the guy,” Gansey said. “So I think sacrifice will be big for us.”

The 76ers believe the talent is versatile enough to make it work. Now Nick Nurse gets to figure out how.

Nurse has plenty of toys

Gansey said that Nurse is essentially “a kid in a candy store” when considering all the lineup possibilities, according to Gina Mizell of The Philadelphia Inquirer.

It’s easy to understand why. Beyond a potential starting five of Maxey, Edgecombe, Brown, James and Embiid, Philadelphia added Anfernee Simons, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Dean Wade and Ariel Hukporti this summer.

Dominick Barlow said that the Sixers could potentially go big or small depending on the matchup.

“I think it’s exciting, just knowing that we have the versatility to play a bunch of different lineups and have guys that can play a bunch of different spots,” Barlow said, per Adam Aaronson of PhillyVoice. 

There are shooting-heavy possibilities around James. There are bigger defensive groups built around Embiid. Brown can slide between positions, while Wade offers size and shooting and Simons gives Nurse another scorer and ballhandler.

The challenge won’t be finding enough talent to put on the floor. It will be finding enough basketballs.

But that’s a problem the Sixers will happily take after an offseason in which they assembled one of the deepest and most fascinating rosters in the NBA.