With only seven days remaining until the 2020-21 NBA season tips off, many teams are having to make some tough decisions concerning their rosters.  NBA regulations allow each franchise team 15 regular players plus two 2-way players, meaning that they would spend part of the season with their NBA team and part with the franchise’s G-League team, if that league moves forward.

NBA Moves And Deals Remain Hot

There is a lot on the line for a lot of guys in this next week and you have to know that the tension is running high.  Even the guys trying to play it cool will be buzzing like a live wire on the inside.

This is the big one that they have put in so many hours and so much sweat and blood and tears to get to where they are, right of the brink of the break that could transform them into household names known to every basketball fan from 6 to 60.

But about this time reality starts to set in and the naked truth that not everybody in training camp will make the final 15-17 basketball pros that make up the team.  The leftovers will most likely get onto a G-League team and start working out harder and planning for next year.

Doc Rivers Wants A Winning Five

Just about the worst part of it all is not knowing and listening to all the rumors flying around every year.  Philadelphia is a good place to start, where Doc Rivers has become the new head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers after leaving California and the Clippers behind.  NBA fans will remember not so long ago when Rivers was the coach of the Boston Celtics when they were on a roll.

But Doc has inherited a bunch of good guys and recruited some other good guys and the 6ers are starting to look as if that could be serious contenders for the new season that tips off in just seven days.

Starting with Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid, it’s hard to go wrong from there.  But Rivers also has Danny Green, Seth Curry and Dwight Howard.  Rumor has it that Doc is very impressed with Shake Milton and plans to use him as a ‘secret weapon’ off the bench.

Multiple good reports from Philly players about young Tyrese Maxey. So who gets the axe?  It looks like Rivers has himself an embarrassment of riches in the City of Brotherly Love.  Maybe that’s why he ended up there.

76ers Pick Up A Few Rookies

The 76ers signed rookies Ryan Broekhoff and Derrick Walton Jr. to non-guaranteed deals before training camp got started to get enough guys into training camp, but now they have waived them both.  However, these talented young men will probably end up playing for the 76ers G-League team and give it another shot next year, or possibly be called up during the season for some unforeseen reason.  All of this means that Justin Anderson will likely make the final fifteen-man roster and begin his first season in the NBA.

Then there is the rumor that the Houston Rockets only want Ben Simmons and three first round draft picks in trade for James Harden, but that would be foolish for Philly and terrible for the team.  However, James Harden does seem to want to get out of Houston.

Russell Westbrook took the first plane out of town and went up to Washington to join the Wizards in exchange for John Wall.  Rumor has it that there is something not exactly right about the Rockets organization that makes all these big named guys want to get out of town.