Another spring injury setback for All-Star Joel Embiid, and the 76ers’ playoff plans wobble again
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Joel Embiid medical malady update itself is no longer surprising. There will be one — there always is one, especially around the playoffs — and it’s just a matter of guessing the body part involved.
It could make for a late-night party game.
Throw a dart, hit the part.
Hey, the appendix!
It might be amusing if the situation wasn’t so unfortunate for Embiid. One of the most talented, dominant big men of his era, Embiid has a 7-foot-2 frame that’s betrayed him at every step of his injury-ravaged career, stunting any potential for reaching all-time greatness.
Again, the Philadelphia 76ers pinned their playoffs hopes on the health of a player who is unable to stay healthy.
Again, the same-old 76ers are stuck in the middle-of-the-road come April.
“It’s a big bummer, man,” coach Nick Nurse said. “For him, first. And then everything else.”
Still easing back from knee injuries that shortened his season, Embiid got appendicitis last week and needed an appendectomy in Houston. While the 76ers haven’t given a timetable on his return, the seven-time All-Star is out for the NBA play-in tournament game Wednesday night at home against Orlando and, should the Sixers win, is surely out of action at least for a first-round series against Boston.
“What the hell, appendicitis?” his former coach, Doc Rivers, said over the weekend. “You can’t make it up. You really can’t.”
Nope.
But then again …
“It’s this time of year, right?” Rivers said.
Consider:
In 2024, Embiid played in the playoffs through a bout with Bell’s palsy, a form of facial paralysis. He wore sunglasses to the podium after he scored 50 points in the Sixers’ Game 3 win over the Knicks and said at the time he was dealing with various symptoms such as blurred vision and dry eyes.
A year earlier, Embiid missed a playoff game each in two series because of a sprained right knee.
How about 2022? The Sixers won 51 games under Rivers and had a great chance at a deep playoff run until Embiid suffered a right orbital fracture and a concussion when he was hit in the face by Toronto’s Pascal Siakam. He also suffered a torn ligament in his right thumb. Embiid missed two games in a second-round series against Miami. The Sixers lost both games and the series, 4-2.
Embiid missed one game in the 2021 playoffs with a torn meniscus in his right knee.
“I still believe if we had one healthy year, probably more the first year, and the last year, we would have advanced,” Rivers said. “I hate saying that. But I think it’s pretty obvious we would have.”
Go back before Rivers’ tenure, and Embiid missed one playoff game in 2019 and two in 2018 with injuries.
Embiid was hampered this season by a strained oblique muscle, a shin stress fracture and continued issues with both knees that limited him to 38 games. He hasn’t played since April 6.
The Sixers had been doing a fine job of managing Embiid’s minutes, and it helped him turn a corner in January when he played in 14 of 17 games (he didn’t play a back-to-back set all season) and capped the month with 40 points and 11 rebounds in a win over New Orleans. He had 34 points against San Antonio in his final game.
The 32-year-old Embiid averaged 26.9 points and 7.7 rebounds this season until he needed the appendectomy.
“All signs are pointing that everything’s going just fine,” Nurse said. “Extremely tough. It’s pretty serious, right? I think that’s the big thing to kind of keep in mind. Obviously, the timing’s not great. I think he was on an uptick as far as where he was going, as far as playing-wise.”
Led by All-Star guard Tyrese Maxey and rookie standout V.J. Edgecombe, the Sixers are 1 1/2-point favorites to beat the Magic, according to BetMGM Sportsbook. The Sixers have 15-1 odds to win the NBA title, and while they would not have been the betting favorite even with a healthy Embiid, they surely would have been in the mix as stronger contenders.
Sixers fans can rattle off the somber statistics by heart.
No NBA championship since 1983. No NBA Finals since 2001. No second-round series win since 2001.
Rivers’ three-season coaching stint in Philadelphia was doomed in 2023 when the Sixers blew a 3-2 second-round series lead to the Celtics with a Game 6 loss at home and dropped Game 7 in Boston.
Nurse hasn’t been any better, suffering a first-round loss to the Knicks in 2024, and they failed to make the playoffs last season when Embiid, Maxey and Paul George (who served a 25-game suspension this season for failing a drug test) all were hurt for the bulk of a 24-win season.
They’ll go at it against Orlando’s Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, who would love to attack the rim against the backup center combination of Andre Drummond and Adem Bona the Sixers are forced to use.
“They’ve been one of the many teams in the league that hasn’t been very healthy this year,” Nurse said. “Really tough game.”
Just one more tough one in the playoffs for the Sixers without Embiid.
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