Sixers' Speights yet to earn team's trust

Now that it is clear that rookie center Nikola Vucevic is 76ers coach Doug Collins' clear-cut choice to be the ninth player in the rotation, the question of why Marreese Speights can't see the floor is going to come up often.

It doesn't matter whom you ask about Speights in the Sixers organization. From top to bottom, they all gush about his offensive skills. Power forward Elton Brand has said that he has a world of offensive ability, almost at an elite level. Collins said pretty much the same thing about the player selected with the 16th overall pick in the 2008 draft. He's also said that in his first year, his biggest mistake as coach was not getting the most out of Speights.

But the truth of the matter is that Speights, perhaps the only Sixer to show up out of shape at the start of training camp, has yet to earn the trust of the coaching staff and his teammates that he will enter a game and do exactly what the team needs him to do in his role as a reserve.

The fadeaway jumpers, the spinning moves around the basket, they're all fine. And Speights will get the opportunity to put all of those skills on display at some point if - and only if - he can carry out the role of the center for the second unit.

For the Sixers, this is all about winning the team's trust. The team has bought into the all-for-one concept that Collins preaches. For Evan Turner it means coming off the bench and doing the dirty work that's not often asked of someone selected with the second pick in the draft.

For Lou Williams - a player who could probably start in the backcourt for close to a dozen teams - it means subordinating himself but at the same time knowing that he is the primary scorer on the second unit. Williams, along with Thaddeus Young and Turner, will provide plenty of offense.

Which makes the question of what is needed from a center in that situation painfully obvious: rebounding and defense. That and knowing exactly where to be on the court at all times have a premium placed on them. (The Sixers have a very deep playbook compared to some of the other teams in the league.)

What this says about Speights is that he has not earned the confidence of the coaching staff to the point he can be put on the floor in this condensed sprint of a season and be counted on.

It has nothing to do with his abilities; they are abundant. He has had two seasons to earn the trust of the coaches - one with Collins, the other with his predecessor, Eddie Jordan - yet the player who could clearly help a team that definitely needs a big man to go out and bang is collecting DNP-coach's decisions rather than grabbing rebounds, setting screens, and guarding the post.

Because the season is so short, there is little time for anyone trying to crack the rotation to do so in practices. This truncated season simply doesn't allow for it.

It speaks volumes that Collins turned to Vucevic during the Sixers' four-game Western Conference road trip to be on the floor - he got minutes in the fourth quarter of their nip-and-tuck loss at Utah - and not Speights.

This isn't punishment. It's not that Speights wasn't drafted by the current regime like Vucevic. Despite the praise heaped on him, Collins, last year's runner-up for coach of the year, has been fired three times from coaching posts. He does not have time to play favorites.

He will play the players he believes will help him win games. Those players, especially toward the end of the rotation, have to know their roles. And the coach has to believe in them, and he has to know that the players he's out there with feel the same way, too.

For Speights, at least for now, that confidence is not there.