Joel Embiid's Season Is Officially Over, Although It Never Really Started In The First Place
Wait, what? But Paul George just quit his podcast! I thought the push for the championship was still on?
Listen. I feel awful for Joel Embiid. Not that he's totally blameless in all of this or anything. He did much of this to himself. He chose to play in the Olympics this past summer when everyone in the world knew it would screw him up for the next season, so this current health situation he's dealing with is 100% on him. But the fact that his entire career has been mired by injury also has an incredible amount of bad luck and fortune mixed into it. It's been one injury after another for Joel Embiid. And for a man of that stature, continuing to age by the minute, each injury is going to be even more improbable than the last to come back to full health.
Which is why the Sixers might legitimately need to consider the possibility here that Joel Embiid has played his final game for this organization. You shut him down for the rest of this season and maybe there's a chance this team can pull off the tank of all tanks. Maybe the Sixers are able to miraculously luck out and get a top 2 pick. But if they don't? Well you're going to have Embiid coming back at maybe 60-70% next year, and Paul George another year older. You're not winning dick with that combo. Not that Embiid has any crazy trade value right now, but you'd at least have to consider making a move if one comes up.
Something tells me the Sixers would never make that move. Josh Harris knows they still have tickets and jerseys to sell, and I doubt he wants to go through another rebuild right now while most of his focus is on the Commanders. So the Sixers will continue to slowly fade into oblivion, and we'll get the full crash and burn a few years from now. But if ever there was a time for the people in charge to seriously consider what life without Embiid would look like, it's right now. Because no matter what treatment and rehab Embiid does on that knee right now, it's going to be the same exact thing next year. And the one after that. And the one after that.