CAMDEN, N.J. — Nick Nurse believes in what he can see as a basketball coach.

What he saw last year wasn’t to his liking, a 24-win campaign that was personally difficult and a summer that was uncomfortably long and unpalatably dictated by ping pong balls in a Chicago ballroom.

What he sees in this year’s version of the Philadelphia 76ers is, he knows, as yet uncertain. But as he talked through its early possibilities Monday, he could only point to the building blocks.

“I got in here at 7:30 this morning, and there was two guys watching film over there, and there’s one guy working out over there, and there’s one guy. I mean, the work ethic and tone of trying to dig out is good,” Nurse said. “… It’s not easy to get all that stuff, the work ethic, the togetherness.”

Optimism heralds every

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