Neither are healthy at the moment but the Sixers hope that by season's end both Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons will take the court together.
Simmons, the No. 1 overall pick in last summer's NBA Draft, has not played a single minute this season after fracturing his foot in September and Embiid is currently sidelined with a knee injury.
While there has been doubt about the chances that the pair of high draft choices and dynamic rookies will have the opportunity to see the court together this season, Sixers general manager Bryan Colangelo is optimistic.
"We hope and think they are both going to be able to play together this year," Colangelo said Thursday on 97.5 The Fanatic. "That's the goal. That's the objective. We'll put the health and long-term performance capability ahead of any kind of short-term gain."
The Sixers were cautious with Embiid, who missed the last two seasons with a pair of stress fractures in his foot. This season, Embiid is not playing on back-to-back nights and has been on a minutes restriction that has been upped to 28-minutes per game from where he began the season at 24-minutes per game.
Embiid has been sidelined since suffering a knee injury against the Houston Rockets on Jan. 27.
Despite limited playing time, Embiid has emerged as a budding star. Embiid is currently averaging 20.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists while per game while shooting 46.6 from the field.
In all likelihood, Colangelo and Sixers head coach Brett Brown will take a similar approach with Simmons once he has deemed healthy enough to make his NBA debut.
Colangelo says that he hopes to be able to use, even a small sample size of games, to evaluate how the duo plays together and the type of players to target this offseason to build around them.
"If it does play out that they do play together this season," Colangelo said. "We'll have a good sample size, a body of work to base some further decisions on it certainly will help us as we move forward into the draft and free agency this summer."
Matt Lombardo may be reached at MDLombardo@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattLombardo975.
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