Philadelphia 76ers: Jonah Bolden is a man without a role
Despite a promising start to his NBA career in 2018-19, Jonah Bolden has been a man without a role for the Philadelphia 76ers so far this season.
In the world of team sports, no one man is an island.
Even in a league like the NBA, where a few star players can make or break the fortune of a team, a player has to be put into the right situation to succeed, regardless of their talents.
It took Victor Oladipo three teams to finally settle into a starring role with the Indiana Pacers, and P.J. Tucker had to play in five different international leagues before becoming a full-time starter at the tender age of 28.
Even look at the Philadelphia 76ers own home-grown bomber Furkan Korkmaz had his player-option declined after two lackluster seasons of sparse play before blossoming into a competent, sharpshooting bench scorer.
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Simply put, a player will never reach their potential – regardless of how high that may be – without a chance to, you know, actually play, a fact that Jonah Bolden knows all too well.
A stash-and-dash Australian second-round draftee in 2017, Bolden made his NBA debut in 2018 following a single season with Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv, and pretty well in limited action: averaging 4.7 points and 3.8 rebounds in 639 total minutes of action (spread over 44 games).
Splitting time between the four and the five – often times alongside his fellow countryman Ben Simmons – the Sixers amassed a 5-2 record in games where Bolden scored at least 10 points – including the team’s best win of the year in Jimmy Butler‘s revenge game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
And yet, after having a wonderful offseason (by his own admission), Bolden has earned all of five minutes for the 2019-20 76ers, all of which came in garbage time.
Granted, this new (lack of a) role has as much to do with the 76ers offseason acquisitions of Al Horford and Kyle O’Quinn as it does with Bolden’s shortcomings, but still, it’s worth wondering why the 6-foot-8 forward from UCLA has been so underutilized over the first (almost) month of the season.
It’s not like the team hasn’t had issues in their frontcourt.
Over the first 11 games of the regular season, the 76ers have been without Joel Embiid, Horford, and/or Simmons in four of them – all of which directly correlate with an uptick in minutes for O’Quinn. Now I’m all for playing the 29-year-old big man, especially when he’s dishing out five assists in 18 minutes like he did against the Portland Trail Blazers, but at some point, Brett Brown has to see what he has in Bolden after a full summer in his system.
I mean seriously, what do they have to lose?
Isn’t it worth finding out if Bolden can play alongside Embiid as limited action as an inside-out stretch four? Or what about filling in for both Embiid and Horford as a small-ball five in a Simmons-focused 3-and-speed all shooter lineup? That could be a major boon if Brown wants to put the pedal to the metal.
Next. Trey Burke finally earns a chance to shine. dark
In a lot of ways, the decision to ice Jonah Bolden out of the rotation feels a lot like Trey Burke‘s exclusion over the first two weeks of the regular season, and in some small way, maybe this could inspire Brett Brown to get his second-year forward into the game with a bit more frequency. If he sticks than great, the Philadelphia 76ers bench just got even deeper, and if not, well, at least we know, and maybe Elton Brand can shop around the high-upside 23-year-old for a better fitting piece at the deadline? Kind of a win-win if you ask me.