Over the next month, we will be previewing every team in the NBA. Here is third installment of our series as we examine the Philadelphia 76ers.

2014-15 Record: 18-64

Notable Acquisitions: Jahlil Okafor (Draft), Kendall Marshall (FA), Carl Landry (Trade), Nik Stauskas (Trade)

Notable Departures: Ish Smith, Thomas Robinson

Temperature Check:

Another year, another season of tanking. Armed with two shiny new lottery picks from the last two seasons (Okafor and the Stauskas), Philadelphia will look to develop a young core while still losing lots of games along the way.

Inside the Playbook:

From a performance standpoint, there hasn’t been much worth watching in Philadelphia. But from a basketball junkie perspective, Brett Brown has a few wonky sets that make his team’s offense a little bit different than most. One of these non-traditional plays is actually a clever twist to a relatively old early offense concept called “Dive” action, which Philly also utilizes and looks like this:

The essential plot points for this set is that the ballhandler dribbles at the trailing big man (again, this usually happens in the flow of semi-transition) who backdoors down the paint. At that point, the big making the ‘rim run’ -- which is basically what it sounds like, a sprint toward the front of the rim -- circles up from underneath and gets into pick-and-roll at the top of the key.

The basic version of dive isn’t very flashy or extraordinarily effective, it’s essentially just a different way for teams to get into pick-and-rolls early in the shot clock in the middle of the floor. But Brown has come up with some interesting wrinkles that turn the play into a fun little set to watch unfold.

The primary difference is that instead of having the big man circling up underneath immediately set a screen for the ballhandler (like in the video above), Brown has his bigs pop just shy of the 3-point line and receive a pass from the wing. From there, the big man will let his teammates cut off him before getting into a dribble hand-off (or DHO, basically a legal version of a moving screen).

Even with Furkan Aldemir at the controls, who is far from David Lee-esque in terms of his skill and savvy with the ball in his hands, Philly is (relatively) tough to defend in this action. That’s because Aldemir, or any other Sixer big that makes the middle catch, is operating without a script. They can fake DHOs or backdoor passes then move the ball to an unexpected target, follow their pass with a screen and scramble defenses for open looks.

While the vast majority of Philly basketball will likely be uninteresting and unwatchable this year, Brown’s creative offense and perhaps some new faces operating within it, will perhaps make slow League Pass nights somewhat entertaining.

Lineup to Watch:

Any lineup with Nerlens Noel and Okafor in the same frontcourt.

For a team that’s destined to be at the bottom of the Eastern Conference again, the Sixers primary goal will be to identify assets for the future. In Noel, they know they have a keeper due to his ability to both protect the rim and be an explosive finisher in pick-and-rolls. Okafor is an NBA unknown, but his basic skillset -- a low block operator with little range on his jumper -- doesn’t seem to mesh very well with Noel’s high flying act on both ends of the floor.

So while Sam Hinkie could very wheel and deal one (or both!) of these two young bigs at some point during his never ending quest to acquire assets and perhaps an entire year’s worth of second round draft picks, this season will be all about evaluating these two promising youngsters. If Okafor and Noel can be productive together this year and appear to be a promising foundation for the future, Philly may finally be nearing a point where the team can actually start moving forward with Hinkie’s “plan” and start, ya know, actually trying to win games.

If these two prove to be a disaster on either end of the floor, it could be yet another reason for Hinkie to extend this extreme rebuild even longer.

Wildcard:

JaKarr Sampson

The physical tools the 6-foot-9, 22-year-old attacking wing has are certainly intriguing. It’s looking like Sampson will be, at the very least, a decent scoring option for the bench for NBA teams. But given his youth, there is obviously some upside left.

After struggling shooting from the outside in Philly last season (24.4 percent), Sampson saw a slight uptick (34.8 percent) on his 23 Summer League attempts. Neither of these numbers are promising, but the hope is that Sampson will showcase some improvement on catch-and-shoot 3’s this year. If he can do that his value both to the Sixers and across the league will likely receive a huge jump.

The same could be said for another area players have a much more difficult time developing: playmaking. Whenever he’s in a pick-and-roll, Sampson’s is in full “get buckets” mode. And even when he does attempt to pass out, he’s, well….

Per Synergy data, Sampson ranks in the bottom four percent of the league on points produced from passes out of pick-and-rolls, a downright abysmal number for any player. What’s even worse is that at his size, Sampson has the height to see the entire defense shifting behind the play and spot open teammates in a way smaller guards can’t. If the light bulb ever clicks in this department, Sampson could move from “talented flyer” to “franchise building block” and help accelerate Philly’s timetable to compete.

Coach’s Question:

Will the toxic nature of losing poison the team’s developmental well and will Brett Brown be able to contain if it does?

Grantland’s Zach Lowe examined the effect of this prevailing wisdom in his piece on the Sixers this past winter. No matter where you stand on the debate that losing can impact player development, this year will no doubt prove a fascinating case study. With just 37 wins in two years and an upcoming season that promises to be just as brutal, Brown will have his hands full maintaining good habits with his young charges.

Working in his favor will be the fact that a few of potential rotation members -- Nik Stauskas, Kendall Marshall, Okafor, etc -- will not have been around long enough to be affected by any backlash caused by extended futility. Yet others, like Tony Wroten, Robert Covington and Sampson, all have endured what must seem like a never-ending string of games without meaning. By piloting a team without true aspirations of winning or even a clear directive to simply start moving forward, Brown will need to extra hard behind the scenes to keep his players on a path to build their games and their habits in ways that work in concert with winning.

Best Case Scenario:

25-57 If….

Noel continues his progress as a defender and pick-and-roll finisher. Okafor has a productive rookie season and one of the new or old faces -- Marshall, Stauskas, Sampson, Wroten -- provides stability in the backcourt.

Worst Case Scenario:

12-70 If…

Any productive veteran (Carl Landry, Wroten) is shipped off well before the trade deadline. Okafor struggles to adjust his game to this level and/or Noel misses extended time, while the plethora of point guards doesn’t yield any consistent contributors.

Click here for a full list of NBA Season Previews from Brett Koremenos.