Between injuries, ineffective back-end pieces and the Sixers leaving a standard roster spot open, there were so few sources of consistently viable minutes available to Nurse early on in 2025-26. Before January, even Embiid's roster spot returned limited value; the former NBA MVP played very few minutes and his per-minute impact was muted compared to his typical standard. In today's NBA, the usage of each and every roster spot is scrutinized. Even with their last roster spot unoccupied for now, the final third of this roster has so much more utility than any crop of players the Sixers have had in their back-end roster spots in recent seasons. SIXERS SIGN LEBRON JAMESJames' decision | Projecting Sixers' rotation | James' impact, on and off the court