To every NBA season there are numbers. Old ones and new ones. Those that are revealing and those that are misleading. Those that show worth and growth and efficiency and so on and so forth.

But one number is a constant: 240. It is immutable. It is etched in stone.

Five players on the court. Forty-eight minutes in a game.

Five times 48 equals 240. That is the amount of time a coach must divvy up among the eight or nine guys he will play on any given night, barring overtime.

And that, Jimmy Lynam was saying the other day, is a considerable challenge.

"You never get it right," said Lynam, once a Sixers coach and now a studio analyst on the team's NBC Sports Philadelphia broadcasts. "You're talking about your team functioning at its max, and it's just a coin flip."

There is so much to consider, beyond talent, when setting a rotation. There is health and chemistry and consistency, Lynam said. You're dealing with human beings, after all, and the ups and downs of everyday life. Maybe a guy's unhappy with his contract, or his touches. Maybe he stayed out too late the night before. Maybe he's having trouble at home.

So of course it's difficult. It was difficult for Lynam, even though he earned a mathematics degree from St. Joe's way back when, and even though the 83-year-old still likes "fooling around with numbers," as he put it. And certainly it will be difficult for current Sixers coach Nick Nurse.

Just look at the way things have shaken out for the Sixers already, with the season opener against Milwaukee looming Wednesday. If anything it looked like they had too much talent heading into training camp, too many guys who either were used to getting regular minutes or who were making a bid for time.

You knew -- or thought you did -- that Joel Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey would get at least 35 minutes a night. That's 105, or 44 percent of the 240. Then it would be left to guys like Andre Drummond, Kelly Oubre Jr., Caleb Martin, Kyle Lowry, Eric Gordon, etc., etc. to fill out the rest.

Oh, but Embiid, struggling with a sore knee, said he will likely not play back-to-backs the rest of his career. If so, there will be at least 15 nights this season when he won't be available, since that's how many back-to-backs the Sixers play -- 15 nights when there will be a sizable hole in the rotation.

George has a knee problem of his own, but might be ready for the opener; he will be re-evaluated Tuesday. Either way, it's important to remember that he is 34, and that he missed enormous chunks of the four seasons prior to the last one.

Maxey is expected to play against the Bucks, despite hurting his thumb in a preseason game last Friday against Orlando. And rookie guard Jared McCain is day to day after suffering a pulmonary contusion in last Wednesday's exhibition against Brooklyn.

There will unquestionably be other potholes to steer around. As Lynam pointed out, things change not only from year to year, but during the course of the season. So when it comes to the rotation, he said, "There's a little trial and error that's going to take place" in the early going.

Who starts? And just as importantly, who finishes? Who plays when, and with whom? These are answers that are not always attainable in the preseason -- especially for this edition of the Sixers, since Embiid didn't see action in any of the exhibitions.

"Once the season starts," Lynam said, "that process begins."

Then it's a matter of adjusting on the fly, all the way through next spring. Consider, if you must, last year's playoff series against the Knicks. Buddy Hield, brought in to provide instant offense off the bench, couldn't make a shot in the first two games, forcing Nurse to turn to Cameron Payne. Payne played well in Game 3, scoring 11 points in just under 16 minutes, but didn't do much the rest of the series. And Hield only found his stroke in Game 6, when it was too late.

"That's a good example, probably the most dramatic: When you get to playoff time, how much rope do you give a guy who's struggling, before making some kind of a significant change?" Lynam said.

He faced a similar dilemma back in 1988-89, his first full season in a four-plus-year run as the Sixers coach. Rookie guard Hersey Hawkins, who went on to enjoy a solid career, struggled that year in a first-round series, also against the Knicks. Ultimately missed 21 of 24 shots, in fact. It was so bad that Lynam was forced to play veteran Gerald Henderson extended minutes in Hawkins' place.

That worked until it didn't. Henderson missed two free throws in the final minute of Game 3, and the Knicks closed out a sweep of the best-of-five series, winning the three games by a total of eight points.

The second of those losses, like the third by a point, saw the Sixers fritter away a 10-point lead in the final 2:12. Well after the game, Lynam skulked into the interview room within Madison Square Garden. The way he remembers it, the space had been filled to capacity when New York coach Rick Pitino spoke. Now it was largely empty. Lynam answered a question or two, then went to leave.

But as he did so he looked up and saw Peter Falk, the actor who had played a seemingly frazzled detective in the TV show "Columbo," leaning against a back wall. Lynam had gotten to know him, since Falk's seat was right behind the visitors' bench in MSG. Even had dinner with him at one point.

So he made sure to touch base.

"His opener was, 'You didn't deserve that,'" Lynam recalled.

In every episode of "Columbo," the lead character would feign bewilderment until the end, when he lowered the boom on the bad guy/gal by asking a final, pointed question. So here are some that apply to the Sixers' current state of affairs:

All this begins getting sorted out now, as will the other questions that arise along the way. The only certainty is that there will be 240 minutes to dole out, nearly every game night. How they're distributed will go a long way toward determining how this season unfolds.