Sixers' bigs not letting situation affect their relationships

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PHOENIX -- Brett Brown brought the trio of Joel Embiid, Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor together on Friday morning to discuss the advantages they can pose against the Suns. During their meeting, Brown noticed their camaraderie in spite of the fact they are vying for limited minutes.

“I’ve known both of them for a long time,” Embiid said after shootaround. “We’ve got a relationship off the court. We’ve been talking to each other [about] whatever that’s going on in the front office, so on the court we’re not going to let that affect our relationship.”

The bigs have pointed out their friendships as reasons for wanting to play together while the Sixers sort out their frontcourt logjam. Before Embiid and Okafor were paired up, they maintained their relationship, which dates back to high school, would translate on the court. Embiid recently noted he also would like the opportunity to play with Noel, who he called his “best friend on the team.” Noel helped Embiid during his two-year rehab process.

“They’re friends,” Brown said. “They really want the best for each other. They understand the situation. They understand that I’m going to coach them and try to find that balance of growing the team and growing them. They’re good people. Their hearts are at the right place. We’ve all arrived at this situation and so now how are we going to deal with it? I think the support they have for one another is genuine and was discussed.”

The Sixers plan to stick with the starting pairing of Embiid and Okafor for at least the current four-game road trip and re-assess in the new year. Brown feels having eight games to examine will be a good sample size for the team to evaluate and either move forward with it or make adjustments.

“My intention is to study this Jahlil-Joel thing, continue to try to find ways to get Nerlens involved - we’re all excited about pairing Nerlens with Joel - and step back and say how does it work,” Brown said. “There’ll be enough of a body of stats and gut feel to figure out, is this going the way that we want? If it isn’t, we’ll try other stuff.”

While the extent of Noel’s playing time remains to be seen, he is expected to be part of the mix. Noel has logged a total of 25 minutes in three games this season after missing the first 23 contests rehabbing from knee surgery.

“We’ll continue to bring Nerlens into this as his fitness and knowledge of what we’re doing grows,” Brown said. “We did admit, it’ll start to heat up toward the end of the year when Nerlens has had a chance to practice more and study what we’re actually doing more.”

The Sixers will have three centers available against the Suns instead of four. Richaun Holmes remained in Philadelphia per the NBA’s concussion protocol following a collision in practice on Thursday.

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