Doc Rivers Cancels Sixers Practice as Trade Rumors Loom

When the Philadelphia 76ers wrapped up their Tuesday night game against the Phoenix Suns, the team understood that the roster might look a lot different when Friday rolls around.

While the team felt a sense of relief since the 2022 NBA trade deadline is on Thursday, they won't feel totally comfortable until three o'clock passes.

On Wednesday, the Sixers got the day off following their loss against the Suns. When Thursday came around, Sixers head coach Doc Rivers planned to host a practice before the team embarks on a back-to-back set of games at home.

However, the practice that was planned never happened. Instead of going through a typical session, Rivers decided to call it off and instead held a film session and a short-lived shootaround as he believed the practice wouldn't have been as productive with all of the trade rumors looming around the team.

Rivers Explains His Decision

Since the Sixers technically didn't practice, no players were made available to the media. Instead, Rivers was the only one to speak publicly before the deadline and offered up his reasoning for why the practice session was called off.

"[Today] was strange. I canceled practice," Rivers explained. "It's just so much stuff going on, so many rumors. I just thought it was the human thing to do instead of the coaching thing was to be straightforward with our guys and tell them, 'I get it.' You know, everybody's names and all of this stuff. So, we'll do shootaround tomorrow with our team -- guaranteed. I thought the human thing to do was let guys get shots up. To think that we were going to get something out of them today would've been a waste of time, so I thought it was the right thing to do on a human level."

Over the next couple of hours, Rivers explained he'll continue watching film in preparation for Friday's game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Soon enough, he'll have a better idea of what his roster will look like for the rest of the season.

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for Sports Illustrated. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.