Surprise Surprise: Joel Embiid Is Now Expected To Miss Even More Time
David L. Nemec. Getty Images.What a banner year it has been for Joel Hans Embiid.
Fortunately, Embiid was healthy as could be in the summer when he ghosted his homeland of Cameroon to play for Team USA at the Olympics. After leaving his birth nation high and dry to win a gold medal at the Olympics, everybody held their breath to make sure the big fella would still have enough gas in the tank to be ready for the start of the NBA season.
He was not.
The first red flag was when it was announced that Joel Embiid wouldn't be playing in any back-to-back games this year. Naturally you had to assume that he's coming dangerously close to being a broken shell of himself, and this was a last ditched effort to preserve what is left of his window. He didn't make his season debut until November 12th with some bizarre undisclosed lower body injury. He has only played in 13 out of the Sixers' 39 games so far this season. Apparently he injured his foot on a media rope during the Christmas game. And now it looks like he'll be out for at least another 7-10 days.
Is this fucking guy kidding me? A swollen knee is a helluva long way from the heart.
At some point you have to question if Embiid is just hurt, or actually injured. At some point you think he'd decide to just grind it out and play through the pain. That's if he had any heart or desire to be great. But at the end of the day, he's already won his MVP and he already signed a 3-year, $192 million contract extension. Hard to care about nonsensical shit like "heart" and "desire" when your bank account is that full.
I just don't get how anybody can defend this guy anymore. Don't get me wrong, he's definitely had his share of bad luck when it comes to injuries. But he also never does himself any favors when it comes to avoiding them. And at a certain point, when your entire career is just bad break after bad break, then what else would anybody expect to happen? This is just what you get from Joel Embiid from now on. Better to get used to it now than to expect anything different over these next few years. The thing about 30-year-old 7-foot tall, 280 lb dudes is that they don't often age with grace.