Fact or Fiction: Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers are in for a painfully long season |Max Sporty|

Each week during the 2023-24 NBA season, we’ll delve into some of the league’s biggest storylines to determine if trends are based more in fact or fiction going forward.

Fact or Fiction: Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers are in for a long season

The NBA launched an investigation this week into the absence of former MVP Joel Embiid from the Philadelphia 76ers to start the season, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. Apparently the league has as many questions as the rest of us about the 7-footer’s continued lack of availability, and for good reason.

Embiid missed each of Philadelphia’s six preseason games with what the team called “left knee injury management.” He tore the meniscus in his left knee for a second time in January, requiring another surgery that sidelined him until April, when he returned at less than 100% for Philadelphia’s playoff run.

He played for Team USA in the Olympics and reported to training camp on time, touting his weight loss. Maybe we should have paid more attention when Embiid informed us at media day, “Physically, I’m fine. I’m not where I want to be … Until they feel like I’m ready to go, I’m sure they’re going to hold me back .”

Hold him back, they did. The Sixers released a statement before their regular-season opener, suggesting that Embiid is “responding well to his individualized plan and expects to step up his return activities this week, including scrambling.” He is expected to miss at least two more games to start the season.

In other words, nine months removed from a second surgery on his left knee, six months after he returned to the court, three months since it played in Paris and one month into the 2024-25 campaign, Embiid is starting to get into game shape. This not only set off alarm bells; it’s a five alarm fire.

Embiid is listed at 7 feet and 280 pounds. Believe it or not, according to Basketball Reference, only four other players in history that size once made even a single All-Star team: Shaquille O’Neal, Yao Ming, Andrew Bynum and Brook Lopez.

Bynum, whose career required multiple surgeries on both knees, retired at age 26. Yao retired five games into his age-30 season, needing a fifth surgery on his left foot. Although Lopez managed to enjoy a long career, despite three operations on his right foot from 2011 to 2014, it was at the age of 30 that he switched to a lower usage habit for self-preservation, signing for the two-year exception in 2018.

Only O’Neal carried his dominance into his 30s. He didn’t have a single major surgery in his 20s. He came off three straight championships (and Finals MVPs) at the age of 30, leading the NBA in Player Efficiency Rating every season. He would win a fourth title with the Miami Heat at age 33, as injuries began to erode his impact, and he was never the same again, playing for four different teams in his final four seasons.

Reminder: The Sixers just gave Embiid a three-year, $192 million contract extension that will pay him nearly $70 million — one-third of the projected salary cap — at age 34 in the 2028-29 season.

Philadelphia is counting on Embiid to become The Next Shaq. There were also questions about O’Neal’s conditioning at 30, but at least we had evidence of what was possible with him at the helm – a dynasty. He didn’t miss a single playoff game in his 20s. Embiid has never finished a season in good health.

We also have ample evidence that Embiid is closer to the end of his career — or at least closer to transitioning into a different phase — than he is to anchoring a championship team. Look at that chart again. Outside of Bynum, who, again, was four years retired by this point in his career, Embiid had recorded the highest usage and lowest availability of anyone his size in his 20s. He turned 30 in March.

And we expect him to improve when he’s already sidelined to start this season? In addition to resting him during the first week of the 2024-25 campaign, the plan to prepare Embiid for a healthy playoff run is to prevent him from playing another 15 back-to-back games. It will also feature “periodic time off during the regular season and routine evaluations by doctors and the 76ers’ medical staff,” Charania reported.

The one thing we learned from Philadelphia’s opening night loss to the Milwaukee Bucks: The Sixers are far from a contender in Embiid’s absence. They looked like a team still trying to figure out who it is when the face of their franchise isn’t on the floor, like they haven’t had enough opportunity to prepare. It doesn’t matter in the end, because who they are without Embiid is of no importance to the title race.

So the Sixers will spend the season teetering between a team running through their oft-injured 7-foot, 280-pound behemoth and one led instead by 24-year-old Tyrese Maxey. The version of the 76ers without Embiid finished last season with a 16-27 record and was outscored by 12.6 points per 100 possessions.

In what world is this a good plan? It is not; it is just the only plan available to them. And it’s one that also hinges on the health of Paul George, 34, who joined Embiid on the injured list to start the season.

George’s 74 games last season was an anomaly. He missed 40% of his games in his previous four seasons with right shoulder, left hamstring, right foot, right elbow, right hamstring, right knee, left groin and left knee ailments. George, who signed a four-year max contract with the Sixers in the offseason, hyperextended his left knee in the preseason, suffering a bone bruise.

Again: Will this get better at age 34 as he opens the season with an injury? He, too, is likely to miss back-to-back games this season in addition to his absence to start the year. At best the Sixers will have their full complement of stars for three quarters of the season, preparing one team to fight for a title and another to prevent them from falling in the standings, as they did last season, all in hopes of hitting the ground running. every other night for the entirety of the playoffs. No team would ever ask for this.

Except for the Sixers, who just signed for four more years of it.

Determination: A fact. Joel Embiid and the 76ers are in for a long season.