‘You don’t build it in a day’: Sixers come together during out-of-town training camp

CHARLESTON, S.C. — After six days of training camp with a slew of new faces, the 76ers will depart The Citadel on Sunday afternoon with a sense of purpose.

They will be motivated by the slights that James Harden isn’t the same player and that P.J. Tucker, at 37, can’t perform at the same level as seasons past.

But a team bonding started to take shape the afternoon before the first day of camp when they boarded a flight to the Lowcountry and checked into a downtown Charleston hotel.

The off-court activities, such as playing video games and cards after practice, visiting the Old Slave Mart Museum, team meals, and being hunkered down during Hurricane Ian contributed to their coming together.

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“When we first got here, I said I don’t really know why we came all the way out here,” Matisse Thybulle said of having training camp almost 700 miles from home base. “But since being here, it’s been very apparent.

“If we were in Philly, it’s like practice is over and going home guys have their gyms they can go to closer to their house. Everyone kind of separates. So to be stuck together is not such a bad deal.”

In addition to visiting the Old Slave Mart Museum, the Sixers went to the Avery Institute of Afro-American History and Culture. They also met with a College of Charleston professor along with retired Marine Corps Gen. Glenn M. Walters, who’s now the president of The Citadel. And, believe it or not, being sequestered together in the team hotel Friday when Hurricane Ian bore down on the city was a positive.

“Even yesterday, guys were like, ‘What are we going to do?’” coach Doc Rivers said about Friday. “I was like, ‘We are going to ride it out like the season.’

“I said, ‘We’re not running from anything. We are going to face, usually you say, the fire. Today, we are going to face the wind, and we’re going to be fine.’”

The Sixers were laid back amid the hurricane.

They had a film study. Then some of them worked out while others played cards most of the day.

“Somebody lost a lot of money is my guess,” Rivers joked.

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The day off actually was good.

That’s because spirits were low Thursday as the team worked on the pick-and-roll. So much so that after practice Rivers had to have a frank conversation with Harden. NBA TV televised the practice. The coach was heard telling Harden, " … You have to have the right spirit about it. And you’ve got to be a leader. … Get them to do it right.”

When Rivers asked him who else was struggling mentally a little bit, Harden mentioned Tobias Harris and Tyrese Maxey.

The coach agreed.

On Saturday, the Sixers had their best practice down here, and Harris stood out the most.

“Guys played together, ball moved,” Rivers said. “As I say every practice, just keeping working things out. I thought they were connected today. That was the first day I would say that. We practice hard every day.

“But I thought today was the first day we were connected.”

The number one thing Rivers wanted to accomplish at camp was seeing the team come together.

“You don’t build it in a day,” he said. “But I think all the time these guys have spent together gives them equity to get on each other. It happened the other day [Wednesday]. Guys weren’t running the pick-and-roll right. And then, the next thing you know, they’re playing cards all day [the next day]. And then [Friday], we were running it right.

“That meant during the card game they were probably talking about it, and eventually you give in to all of the conversation. So that’s what I want out of this.”

There also were several on-court takeaways from this training camp.

The Sixers see Tucker as more of a small forward than a power forward because of his ability to be an elite three-and-D player.

The offensive work Thybulle put in this summer is paying off. The guard shot the bell well Tuesday and Wednesday. He followed that up by not making many shots on Thursday. However, he buried a big three-point shot on Saturday.

Jaden Spinger’s play hasn’t gone unnoticed. The Sixers have been raving about the second-year player’s defense. Player development coach Spencer Rivers, the son of the coach, calls him unscreenable.

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The Sixers are expected to have a starting lineup of Tucker, Harris, Embiid, Maxey, and Harden when the season opens on Oct. 18 in Boston.

However, they have yet to decide which five players will make up their second unit.

Once the season starts, they would like to stagger Harris and Maxey with three reserves.

“We like the Tyrese, De’Anthony [Melton] combination. So we’ll see,” said the head coach.

On Saturday, in their intrasquad scrimmage, they went with a small lineup at one point with Paul Reed, Georges Niang, Harris, Maxey, and Melton.

The group lost on the last possession in large part because the 6-foot-2 Melton was somehow guarding the 7-2 Embiid in the post.

“That was just a brilliant deduction by that team,” Rivers joked. “They gave [Embiid] five dribbles and nobody trapped [Embiid]. Other than that, it was a great practice.

“Are you kidding me? Tucker was on the other team and he was yelling, ‘Go trap!’ ”

But jokes aside, coming to the Lowcountry was good for team morale.

As the Sixers found out following Wednesday’s frustrating moments, being away as a group forced them to work out disagreements.

When you are home, “you go home to their peripheral opponent,” Rivers said. “Today in camp, there is no peripheral opponent. You go back to the room with each other. And you tend to go to that person, and say what do we need to do.

“Instead of going home ... and that person is probably going to tell you what you want to hear. They ain’t going to tell you what you don’t want to hear.”