Tony Wroten Has Chance To Shine With Sixers
By Ray Boyd
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Playing for the Sixers currently is all about opportunity. The team's commitment to young players and player development has opened up a landscape where your play will dictate your role as opposed to your contract or track record.
One player who has the opportunity to benefit greatly from this landscape in 2014-15 is 3rd year guard Tony Wroten.
Wroten came to the Sixers prior to last season as a raw swing guard with a knack for scoring the basketball. He was coming off a rookie season in Memphis where he did not get the opportunity to make a tangible impact on a playoff team.
This season, Wroten is coming off a sophomore campaign where he averaged 13 points per game for Brett Brown's squad. There is clearly promise for him as a change of pace guard who can come off the bench, provide points and change the flow of a game with his quickness.
His coach is now challenging him in a new way with two main focuses: slowing down his game and thinking the game more. With Michael Carter-Williams still recovering from off-season surgery, Wroten is going to be the team's primary ball handler.
"I think there is a natural excitement when you say 'here's the ball,' you know when Michael is not playing," Brown said of handing the reins to Wroten. "It empowers [Wroten] probably even more."
The coach is also seeing some progress in his game.
"I think he has improved over the summer," Brown said following Friday's training camp practice session. "I think he's a little bit better because of the familiarity that he has with me and what we're running and he knows the expectation and nobody's mincing words. I do see an excited, committed, more mature thinker."
Brown said he is pleased to see the improved level of thinking from Wroten because of how gifted he already is physically.
Wroten also spoke about the season ahead and appears eager to do whatever his head coach tells him. "Coach came from the Spurs," Wroten said when asked by reporters about whether the players mind the long and intense training sessions that the team has implemented for camp this year.
"[The Spurs] are champions. Whatever he is going to have us do, we're going to do it." Wroten seemed eager to be a part of this young team with a new culture.
Wroten admitted that he is well aware that his coach wants to see him be a more mature thinker on the floor, but he said that a sit down with Brown was not necessary to determine exactly what that meant. He cited that one of the keys is for him to slow down his game a bit on the offensive end, while using his quickness to pester opponents on defense.
Maturity could bode well for Wroten's game. You have to remember, Wroten would have been a college senior and instead he is a third year NBA player. If you add a new level of cognizance to his game, the early indications of promise for Wroten should indeed come to fruition.
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