Nick Nurse pleased with Sixers’ offseason revamp: ‘We certainly had a great summer’

LAS VEGAS — The 76ers entered free agency as one of the NBA’s most interesting teams as they held plenty of cap space and various assets.

Their most significant move of the summer came when Paul George signed a four-year, $212 million contract to form a big three with Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. But signing Caleb Martin, Andre Drummond, and Eric Gordon, along with re-signing Kelly Oubre Jr., Kyle Lowry, and Maxey, has catapulted the Sixers into championship contention for next season.

“We certainly had a great summer,” coach Nick Nurse said Monday at NBA Summer League. “There’s just no other way of looking at it in that there’s a lot of guys that we targeted that were at the very top of our list, and a lot of categories that we needed to fill, and we got a lot of them.”

George is a great fit for the Sixers.

George, Embiid, and Maxey have a chance to be the best Sixers trio since Hall of Famers Julius Erving, Mo Cheeks, and Charles Barkley during the 1986-87 season. All three were All-Star selections that season, marking the last time Philly had three participants in the same All-Star Game.

But the Sixers now have a guard in Maxey, a wing in George, and a center in Embiid all coming off All-Star seasons. Their chances of overtaking the NBA champion Boston Celtics as the league’s elite team overwhelmingly improved.

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And George, one of the NBA’s top defenders, shouldn’t have a problem co-existing with Maxey and Embiid.

“Again, I think it was the fit,” Nurse said. “We had the one, five [positions] solidified. We needed something in the middle. That’s PG. We are going to have to wait and see. I’m sure it’s going to take some time, you know, for total connection and chemistry, but obviously they all can score at all levels. So it should be a great fit.”

But while the Sixers’ stars are in place, their effort to fill out the roster is ongoing. That starts in the frontcourt. Embiid stands 7-foot-2 while Drummond, the backup center, is 6-11, but the Sixers are undersize elsewhere and don’t have a true power forward.

George and rookie reserve center Adem Bona are the next tallest players at 6-8. And there has been speculation that Maxey (6-2), Oubre (6-7), Martin (6-5), George, and Embiid will make up the starting lineup.

Is Nurse actually looking to add Martin to the starting lineup?

“Well, I don’t know about any of that stuff yet,” he said. “But I think you would say Kelly, Caleb, PG are all kind of interchangeable two through four. You know what I mean? I just think you got wing players out there. And that’s how I see it right now.”

The Sixers finished this past season with a 47-35 record, marking their worst regular-season winning percentage (.573) in seven seasons.

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But there was a belief they could make a deep postseason run after Embiid returned from knee surgery and an eight-week absence. If healthy, his presence was expected to make them tough to beat.

In reality, while they might have been better with him, they just weren’t good enough to get out of the first round. They lost to the New York Knicks in six games.

Now, Nurse and the Sixers are overjoyed about successfully revamping their roster.

“It was a great team effort by everybody and a lot of work,” Nurse said.