After yet another serious injury to Joel Embiid, how should the Sixers react?
Tuesday night against the Golden State Warriors, Joel Embiid suffered a potentially season ending meniscus tear, leaving Sixers fans to ask themselves if the suffering will ever end. After last year's disappointing loss to the Boston Celtics, in large part due to Embiid missing the first two games of the series, rumors began to arise about Joel Embiid's future.
Analysts began to question whether Embiid should want to stay in Philadelphia. Many doubted the franchise's ability to put a contender around the star big man, given the lack of draft picks remaining after the failure of blockbuster trades for James Harden, Tobias Harris, and Jimmy Butler. Given Embiid had just won the MVP award, they argued that it was his right to ask for a new team to help him pursue the trophy.
Other skeptics took the opposite route, they wondered whether the Sixers should want to keep Embiid.
After all, this is now the third year in a row the playoff run will be in large part decided due to the lack of health displayed by Embiid. Embiid has missed the first two games of the second round in each of the past two seasons, the first year was against the Heat followed by the Celtics this past season.
Prior to Joel’s 2022, where missed games potentially cost the Sixers his first appearance in the conference finals, missed games may have cost him the 2020-2021 MVP award as he was the betting favorite before a knee bruise led to him playing only 51 games on the season. Embiid was believed to be healthy by the playoffs but it's hard to imagine the lack of chemistry didn’t play a role in their defeat to the Hawks.
With the NBA trade deadline looming, Daryl Morey must react fast to help the Sixers prepare for their future. Today, February 2nd, the Sixers rank 5th in the Eastern Conference, sitting 6.0 games behind the Celtics for the 1 seed and 10.0 games ahead of the Atlanta Hawks for the final play-in spot.
With 35 games left, the current win percentage would expect the team to go something like 22-13 to finish the season. Without Embiid, 16-19 would be looking like a generous prediction. Last night the team needed 51 points from Tyrese Maxey just to beat the below .500 Utah Jazz.
The average meniscus tear recovery period is anytime between six weeks to three months. This suggests the earliest Embiid can return would be the middle of March and the latest would be the end of April, just after the beginning of the second round.
While it’s always a shame when a player goes down, it's not totally out of the realm of possibilities that Embiid never plays for the team again, which is a sobering thought. Embiid turns 30 in March. Paired with an entire career full of major injuries, that doesn’t look good. Embiid is also yet to elevate his game during the playoffs similar to so many other legendary bigs like Hakeem, Shaq, and even Jokic.
If Embiid returns this season, it will be just before or during the playoffs with the team as a late seed.
While the 8th seeded Miami Heat made the finals just last season, there have only ever been two teams lower than the three seed to win the finals, in 1969 and 1995. The Sixers are not the only team who have been seeded lower due to regular season injury since then.
Given this injury’s ramifications, this summer will be the last chance the Sixers have at building a contender around Embiid. The worst thing the team can do right this moment would be to spend draft capital or acquire multi year deals.
What the team should do is keep cap space open and acquire picks to help for next season. Players on expiring deals such as Nicholas Batum, Tobias Harris, Mo Bamba, Patrick Beverley, Robert Covington, and Kelly Oubre could all potentially bring back draft picks in deals. If the team decides to keep Embiid over the summer, they will have the cap space and assets to fill out the team. And if they decide to kick off the rebuild, they can enter it with a bunch of picks obtained for players they might not have kept anyway.
