Wyatt needs to get in great shape, Brown says

Read into this what you will: The 76ers reported for pre-training camp workouts on Sept. 9, and it took just a couple of weeks before we had an all-too-familiar report on Khalif Wyatt.

"He's tempting," Sixers coach Brett Brown said Wednesday of the undrafted rookie free agent out of Temple. "There's a tantalizing part of him that you wonder if he's Gary Neal."

Brown believes Wyatt has the potential to become a scoring point guard like Neal, a former San Antonio Spur who now plays for Milwaukee. The former Spurs assistant also said that at 6-foot-4 and 206 pounds, Wyatt has a similar body type to Neal's.

"Khalif's got to get in great shape," Brown said of the player whose conditioning was called into question at Temple. "There's a part of his game that you get excited about. I am convinced that his key, again, is fitness."

The Sixers will have to decide whether Wyatt is a scoring guard or a point guard. The reigning Big Five and Atlantic Ten player of the year possesses a scoring instinct and is good at distributing the ball.

"So now you are going to get down to a speed issue and an athleticism issue," Brown said. "And for him to be as good as he can be, it needs to be about thin and low skin folds and extracting as much quickness as you can."

There was a thought that Thaddeus Young, Evan Turner, or Spencer Hawes could be traded this summer once the Sixers parted ways with Jrue Holiday on draft night.

But three months later, the three players are the unquestioned leaders of the team. Young, Turner, and Hawes have been spearheading the Sixers workouts.

"They are enjoyable to talk to," Brown said, "and I have empowered them. I do look at them like we used to look at [San Antonio Spurs Tim] Duncan, Tony [Parker], and Manu [Ginobili]."

The coach wants opinions from the three on a lot of things.

"They know the lay of the land," he said. "They deserve to be heard."

Brown added that the trio and rookie point guard Michael Carter-Williams are the only players who will definitely receive playing time.

Royce White is participating in the workouts and will be on hand for media day on Friday.

"He is slowly getting to a level that we want to try to bring him to," Brown said of the power forward who was acquired in a July trade with the Houston Rockets. "It's exciting to see what could happen if the physical side of getting him in great shape can collide with his talents and all the other things that have gone on with Royce."

The 16th overall pick in the 2012 draft has an anxiety disorder; he did not play in the NBA last season. The forward out of Iowa State last practiced with the Rockets on Nov. 10 and played 16 games with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the NBA Development League.

White had been in a disagreement with the Rockets over how to deal with his anxiety issues.

Brown said that Lavoy Allen, Kwame Brown, and Arnett Moultrie are injured. Allen posted a photo of himself on Twitter wearing a compression boot. Moultrie is reportedly in a walking boot; there is no word on Brown's injury. . . . Brown said he's still searching for another assistant coach.

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