Sixers writer Keith Pompey says Embiid is out indefinitely with swelling in his foot. Uh-oh. Poor guy. Starting to feel like if Sam Bowie was as talented as Olajuwon.
It is his knee that is swollen, not his foot. Totally different injury, due to a minor meniscus tear. Not serious, but of course the Sixers a are glad to shut him and Simmons down for the season.
Does this now put Saric in the lead for rookie of the year? Is anyone else even close?
As of today, pretty clearly behind Brogdon of the Bucks. Brogdon leads rookies in assists and steals, has a better PER than Saric, and is a better shooter, especially from behind the arc and at the FT line. Saric beats him as a rebounder. Neither are defensively oriented. See BasketballReference.com comparison below:
http://bkref.com/tiny/oChc9
I'll take Jaylen Brown's upside over either of them. 2.5 years younger than Saric and 3.9 years younger than Brogdon.
crazy related to Brogdon being 4 years older than Brown! Really why you can't always compare rookies.
Related to 76ers, really hard to think Embiid will have a long career. It looks like there is a very good chance he will complete his 3rd year in the NBA having played in 30 total games. Can he really ever be trusted to be a 70 game a season player? Only similar person seems Ilgauskas (although I always feel like he would have been a touch better without all the injuries)
I think it is a race between Brogdon, Murray and Šarić and Dario is the frontrunner ATM.
Murray could explode scoring wise and make the playoffs. He is so young and green that the rest of his floor game is almost nonexistent.
Brogdon is starting and making the most of his age difference (24-079d) with a pretty efficient role, playing next to Giannis.
Šarić ATM is the best player on his team (Embiid out), looks like their emotional leader, rebounder, and a lot of times creator and finisher. He can take a bigger workload than any other candidate and he has a grown man's body. IMO that will allow being the ROY over others.
Before the season no one thought of Dario as an ROY. I bit my tongue (better said, fingers) and never wrote of him as an ROY possibility before the season. Thinking behind it was that all would just dismiss me as a Croatian Homer. Right now, Dario is 76ers Marcus Smart. Never quitting, playing unselfishly, is a poor shooter, but like Smart, he never loses his 3pt shot aggressiveness, both are versatile and a born winners.