Welcome to another edition of Sunday stats! Next time we break down a variety of Sixers figures, those figures will be numbers stemming from the first two games of its 2025-26 regular season.
Today we will have to settle for preseason numbers one final time, but Friday's dress rehearsal provided a whole lot of material. Let's dive in:
10
The number of offensive rebounds grabbed by Dominick Barlow in the preseason.
As soon as the Sixers completed their first official practice of the 2025-26 season, head coach Nick Nurse opted to shine a light on Barlow, the 22-year-old athletic big signed to a two-way contract. Nurse's favorite players are ones who leverage their athleticism on the glass and create chaos, and from what he was describing Barlow very much fit that mold.
Nobody played more preseason minutes than Barlow (109), and he made the absolute most of his opportunity. It feels more plausible that Barlow ends up starting next to Joel Embiid on opening night in Boston on Wednesday than it does that he is not part of Nurse's rotation at all.
Barlow is a suspect three-point shooter; he has only shot 25.0 percent from beyond the arc across three NBA seasons and went just 1-for-8 with the Sixers in the preseason. For what it's worth, Nurse has said Barlow is an improved shooter, but until he proves it in game settings he will be treated as a non-shooter or something close to it.
With Embiid seemingly on the verge of having his name penciled into the starting lineup in Boston, Barlow finds himself with a tremendous opportunity to develop a rapport with the former NBA MVP, whether he starts alongside Embiid or not. The value of that chance is enormous – "I mean, he's a great basketball player," Barlow said last week – but it should not change Barlow's focus.
Barlow's 26 rebounds in those 109 minutes is a strong total, though not a mind-blowing one. But anecdotally, it has felt as if an enormous number of Barlow's rebounds in preseason action came in contested situations. Not everyone can be 6-foot-9 with tremendous leaping ability and an absurd 7-foot-3 wingspan.
37.5 percent
The Sixers' field goal percentage (3-for-8) in 3:08 with Joel Embiid and Adem Bona on the floor in Friday's preseason finale.
The Sixers clearly want more traditional size next to Embiid to ease his burden, even at the cost of shooting. So a much more extreme idea emerged in addition to the Embiid/Barlow pairing, and that is playing Embiid as a de facto power forward alongside Bona, his backup at center. Nurse first unveiled the concept last weekend at the Blue X White Scrimmage, then indicated it was more than a novelty. The Sixers have seriously considered utilizing that double-big look in games, and Nurse ended up starting Embiid and Bona together in Friday's preseason finale. Their time on the floor was predictably short.
"We've been playing Joel and Bona together in practice here a little bit," Nurse said after the game. "Kind of like what we see there. On both ends, it was fine. Offensively, it's Bona keeping some offensive rebounds alive. But defensively, I thought it showed up even more, it seemed like we had really good rim protection to start the game. Just wanted to look at it in real time since we've been practicing it."
Having more interior muscle will help quite a bit with rim protection and rebounding, especially as the Sixers look for avenues to help Embiid pace himself during the regular season. Bona is not the kind of player Embiid has traditionally shared the frontcourt with, but that does not mean this arrangement is doomed.
"It does [have potential]," Embiid said. "Obviously, having another big body, that's going to help [with] rebounding… I've got the rim, I've always had the rim, so try to be a presence down there… [Bona] knows what his role is, he knows what we need from him. I think over my career, that's something that I've always felt like was kind of needed.
"Everybody has always focused on shooting, stretch four, this and that. And I think just having a bunch of guys around that are just going to go after every loose ball, play defense, rebound the ball and fly up and down the court. I think that goes a long way, especially for me as I'm coming back and I'm trying to stay on the right path."
The key to pulling these lineups off might be the other three players on the floor. Nurse started Embiid and Bona alongside Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe and Kelly Oubre Jr.; Maxey is a stellar long-range shooter but Edgecombe and Oubre are not. Perhaps going to the Embiid/Bona pairing during the middle of a game and ensuring there is optimal spacing around that duo is the right idea.
MORE: Embiid's return provides the Sixers some hope – and Embiid some relief
9:15
The amount of time in which Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe and Quentin Grimes shared the floor on Friday.
With all of that being said about the value of positional size and physicality, whenever Jared McCain returns to action it is possible that four of the Sixers' six best players are guards. For now, it is Maxey, Edgecombe and Grimes making up what is still a strong mix of guards with different skills. Maxey and Edgecombe appear locked into the starting guard spots; whether or not Grimes joins them as a smaller starting small forward remains to be seen.
On Friday, Grimes came off the bench and it did not matter all that much. All three guards eclipsed 20 points on strong efficiency marks, and each one had chances to fully blossom.
"I mean, I think they're all three really good players," Nurse said. "I think what I probably liked the most was just the way they were getting up the floor and attacking."
It is very clear that the Sixers are emphasizing pace with those guards. There are distinct advantages that come with having more athletic ball-handlers than an opponent, and the Sixers should be focused on maximizing the upside that exists there.
"That's the name of the game right now in the NBA: pushing the pace and getting up threes," Grimes said. "We've got a lot of guys who play fast, push the pace, create opportunities for not just ourselves but our teammates. So I feel like if we keep pushing the pace, it'll get the defense tired. And it might get us tired, too, but we'll be alright in the long run."
The wild card in all of this is the 20-year-old Edgecombe, whose draft cycle included a whole lot of skepticism about his ability to play on the ball in the NBA at any point in the near future. Edgecombe's early success while being empowered with the ball has completely changed the Sixers' calculus.
"I think we thought, 'OK, maybe he could play on the ball some,' and we were talking about, 'Let's do it at Summer League,'" Nurse said. "But where we're at, I think he's way ahead of where we thought he might be being able to do that."
Nurse went to a three-guard lineup on three different occasions on Friday despite Maxey sitting for the final 16 minutes of the game and Edgecombe resting for most of the fourth quarter. It is clearly a point of emphasis and something the Sixers hope can become one of the key staples of Nurse's rotation.
MORE: Edgecombe stars in home debut: 'I can't wait for him to get started with his career'
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