Joel Embiid Likely Out for the Season, Will Have Second Surgery

[Eddie20]

I feel bad for Embiid. Hopefully he gets healthy some day. I don't understand why people criticize Philly for picking him, he was clearly the right pick at the time at #3.

He was the right pick, although it did come with it's risk. The Sixers were willing to roll the dice after he had two different stress fractures, in just a few months, and they lost.

I do feel bad for Embiid. The kid had a bright, bright future. "Had" being the optimal word though. These type of injuries are devastating.

I do not feel for Hinkie, the Sixers organization, or their fans, which includes LarBrd33. They put out an inferior product and despite his many fans, Hinkie has set his franchise back years with a few questionable decisions that don't even include Embiid.

* Traded Thaddeus Young for Luc Mbah a Moute, Alexey Shved and Heat '16 1st-rounder (which at best is a mid rd pick)

* Traded Carter-Williams, who was cost controlled, for Lakers 2016 1st rd pick (the Lakers are improved and the draft is said to be weaker)

* Drafted Saric even though he's not projected to play for a few years and by the time he does come over he might no longer be under the rookie scale contract

Thad Young.  Seriously.  A guy that should never be starting on a good team has you all riled up.  And that Lakers pick was almost turned over this year for a guy that seems like an efficient volume scorer. 

The Sixers have tanked sure, but they haven't been the worst team in either of the last two seasons and the team that did finish in last year and won the first pick, also clearly tanked.  I mean they traded a 26/15 PF just entering his prime for a terrible #1 and an unproven rookie.  They then traded that same Thad Young for the sentiment of Kevin Garnett (who let's face it adds absolutely nothing on the court for a winning team, though is a good guy to have around a young tanking team).  That same Minnesota that also unloaded quality veterans like Corey Brewer.

Knicks clear and utter tank job.  Probably worse than the Sixers.  The Lakers went full on tank mode.

I don't get why teams like the Wolves, Knicks, and Lakers get a pass on tanking while everyone bemoans the Sixers.  And some of those teams tanked a lot harder than the Sixers did.

It doesn't have me worked up, it's just poor moves. The Young and MCW were pretty poor based on return. There is no other way to say it.

The Wolves situation is a poor comparison to the Sixers. They traded away Love, who was going to walk at season's end anyways, for Wiggins (the # 1 overall pick) and a bum (Bennett). Regardless of the latter, the trade was great value. They also traded away Young to open up minutes for their younger players, while giving the team a great mentor.

Lakers and Knicks may have tanked last season, albeit following the Kobe and Melo injuries, but it's not continuous like the Sixers has been. The last 3 years the Sixers have won 34, 19 and 18 games and another 20 game season looms.

[Eddie20]

I will be very sad if we don´t ever get to see Embiid play. Kid has crazy talent.

I'm still trying to find some information on what exactly his second surgery entails.  It's rather strange, because everything I read suggested that he hadn't re-injured anything.  He was feeling 100%.  Everything seemed to suggest it had to do with the tissue around the bone not looking fully filled in yet.   So what is this surgery?   If he didn't re-break it... are there spider cracks or something?   Did they decide that re-breaking it clinically gives him the best shot of eventually being 100%?   Is it even the same kind of surgery or is it something supplementary to resolve something less serious?

I assume we'll find out more next week, but there was this:

Bob Cooney: Another break in Embiid’s foot wasn’t confirmed to me, “but it would seem like it,” said a source

[hpantazo]

I will be very sad if we don´t ever get to see Embiid play. Kid has crazy talent.

I'm still trying to find some information on what exactly his second surgery entails.  It's rather strange, because everything I read suggested that he hadn't re-injured anything.  He was feeling 100%.  Everything seemed to suggest it had to do with the tissue around the bone not looking fully filled in yet.   So what is this surgery?   If he didn't re-break it... are there spider cracks or something?   Did they decide that re-breaking it clinically gives him the best shot of eventually being 100%?   Is it even the same kind of surgery or is it something supplementary to resolve something less serious?

I feel bad for the kid.  As a fan of basketball, I just want to see what Embiid can do out there.   Based on what I read leading up to today, they wanted to do whatever would give Embiid the best probable shot of playing 100% healthy long-term.   That organization is all about playing the odds.   So if they decided that surgery was the best option here, I guess that means it's Embiid's best shot to play long term.   Looks like Philly will be entering phase 3 of their tank.

My guess is it's likely a combination of not fully healing from the past surgery complicated by his continued growth. I don't think they actually planned for that variable when they carried out the first surgery. I'm pretty sure this is to give him the best chance at a healthy, long term career, and anyway they are not contending this year so why rush him back and risk re-injury when you can conduct a procedure to give him a much better chance at a 10-14 year career? He will be ready when Saric comes over, and by then they will have seen enough of Okafor and Noel to decide what to do with them. Not a 'sky is falling' picture for Phili as some people want to paint.

They still have 4 prospects with all-star to franchise-player level potential in Noel, Okafor, Embiid, and Saric, and we have maybe 1 in Smart.

[GreenCoffeeBean]

That 2013 draft might go down as one of the worst of all time. The lottery picks certainly are one of the worst, anyway.

[MBunge]

I don't get why teams like the Wolves, Knicks, and Lakers get a pass on tanking while everyone bemoans the Sixers.  And some of those teams tanked a lot harder than the Sixers did.

1.  The Wolves had legitimate injury woes last year.

2.  Everybody acknowledges that the Knicks went into last season expecting/hoping to be a playoff team.

3.  The Lakers wanted to keep Dwight, Randle got hurt and I'm pretty sure they were willing to bring back Pau.

None of those situations are at all like what Philly has done.

Mike

[Endless Paradise]

Lakers and Knicks may have tanked last season, albeit following the Kobe and Melo injuries, but it's not continuous like the Sixers has been. The last 3 years the Sixers have won 34, 19 and 18 games and another 20 game season looms.

The Sixers absolutely were not tanking when they won 34 games; they were just a legitimately bad team. That was the Bynum year. The entire reason they started tanking is because they had a decade-plus of being also-rans and winning about 30-40 games or so.

They've been tanking for less years than the Magic.

As for the Young trade, I don't see how you can argue they got poor value out of that. He had a pseudo-expiring and is an average player - getting a first rounder for him was great. It's roughly exactly what Danny got for Jeff Green. Do you think that was similarly "poor value"? Teams aren't giving up the farm for unspectacular NBA players with contracts that are either expiring or will likely expire due to a player option.

[csfansince60s]

I don't get why teams like the Wolves, Knicks, and Lakers get a pass on tanking while everyone bemoans the Sixers.  And some of those teams tanked a lot harder than the Sixers did.

Because they tank like this while Philly tanks like that.

TP...that made me laugh.

Tank you very much....OR no tank you!

[sahara]

I will be very sad if we don´t ever get to see Embiid play. Kid has crazy talent.

So if they decided that surgery was the best option here, I guess that means it's Embiid's best shot to play long term.   Looks like Philly will be entering phase 3 of their tank.

I think that Joel and his agent would be really opposed to this, I don´t think he can just sit out another year for the sake of that team. These things REALLY hurts his value.

[BDeCosta26]

I feel sorry for Embiid. He may never see the court in his entire career if it's going like this at the jump. That dude has true superstar potential if he ever got healthy and got his head straight. Just a shame. Hinkie's was sorta forced to take him. At that time, there was a BIG gap between Wiggins, Parker, Embiid and Gordon, Smart, Exum, Randle.

Bury y'know what, that's what they get. I understand the theory behind what they're doing, but I just can't agree with it. You can tear down and rebuild, but taking guys coming off injury specifically so you can suck again the next year? Trading your ROY point guard, in his second season? Trying to skirt the salary floor and losing on purpose, year after year while purposely trying to NOT improve? That's ridiculous. The system is broken, for sure. But the basketball gods are punishing Hinkie.

Now it gets interesting. Hinkie can't really trade Embiid now. He's gotta put Noel and Okafor out there for a good chunk of minutes. Considering how weak everyone else on that team is, they're gonna give those guys a lot of scoring opportunities, but playing them together really limits what they can do. Noel will be fine defensively at the 4, but his offense is no where near ready for that. He's just gonna clog things up for Okafor.

 I said this in a different thread, and I'm sticking by it. Don't be surprised if by seasons end the idea that we would want to trade Smart AND other assets seems ridiculous. Noel's value could really drop playing heavy minutes next to Okafor. And Smarts could rise by carrying over some of this summer league play into the year.

[hpantazo]

I feel sorry for Embiid. He may never see the court in his entire career if it's going like this at the jump. That dude has true superstar potential if he ever got healthy and got his head straight. Just a shame. Hinkie's was sorta forced to take him. At that time, there was a BIG gap between Wiggins, Parker, Embiid and Gordon, Smart, Exum, Randle.

Bury y'know what, that's what they get. I understand the theory behind what they're doing, but I just can't agree with it. You can tear down and rebuild, but taking guys coming off injury specifically so you can suck again the next year? Trading your ROY point guard, in his second season? Trying to skirt the salary floor and losing on purpose, year after year while purposely trying to NOT improve? That's ridiculous. The system is broken, for sure. But the basketball gods are punishing Hinkie.

Now it gets interesting. Hinkie can't really trade Embiid now. He's gotta put Noel and Okafor out there for a good chunk of minutes. Considering how weak everyone else on that team is, they're gonna give those guys a lot of scoring opportunities, but playing them together really limits what they can do. Noel will be fine defensively at the 4, but his offense is no where near ready for that. He's just gonna clog things up for Okafor.

 I said this in a different thread, and I'm sticking by it. Don't be surprised if by seasons end the idea that we would want to trade Smart AND other assets seems ridiculous. Noel's value could really drop playing heavy minutes next to Okafor. And Smarts could rise by carrying over some of this summer league play into the year.

I fully agree with this. Smart is going to look like a superstar this year if his preseason is any indication, and Noel and Okafor are going to struggle playing together and carrying the burden of being the primary focus of opposing defenses every night.

[fairweatherfan]

Forget the philly chat, as a Celtics fan I'm so grateful Embiid didn't drop to 6, because picking him would've been the right move at the time, and probably what Danny would've done.

I feel absolutely terrible for Embiid though, and for basketball fans for probably never getting to see how close he'd come to his immense potential.  At least he managed to get his rookie contract money - if the age restrictions the league wants had gone through he'd probably have never gotten a guaranteed deal.

[hpantazo]

On the celtics side of things, it really limits the chances that the Sixers would trade one of their centers to us, which does suck.

[LarBrd33]

On the celtics side of things, it really limits the chances that the Sixers would trade one of their centers to us, which does suck.

I agree with that.  But my assumption is that Embiid will eventually play.  So a year from now at least we'll have a better look at Smart and Rozier and get a sense of how willing we are to part with Smart in a deal for a guy like Noel.  Of course, there's a chance Noel makes major leaps this season and Smart doesn't... and the entire premise loses any plausibility. 

[D.o.s.]

Welp, it looks like the circle jerk is proceeding nicely. I think I'll leave the thread before I get any on my monitor.

I mean, we could go through and look at all the posts about how Rondo was going to come back and be just fine which, in hindsight, look significantly dumber. All it proves is that none of us can see the future.

Some just act like they do.

Yeah but dude you, in particular, act this way all the time. You did it with Tim per Rondo, you did it with Triboy on Aaron Gordon (or something), and you do it with LB on Embiid.

The common denominator here should be fairly easy to spot.

Right, because his opinions are shared by the masses. Ironically, I think some of the biggest back and forths ever were between he and Tim. Usually I disagree with people here about basketball related topics. Isn't that only normal? Diffent minds = different opinions. LarBrd was dismissing all the reports of Embiid's medical issues, something (medical field) that he probably has no knowledge about. And not only was he doing so, but he was doing so in a very smug manner.

I know you're trying to be his PR guy, but he's a big boy and has written A LOT about Embiid. Isn't it only just that he gives a response on the news?

Some of the biggest differences on this blog have been between me and LB. Most recently Biyombo, prior to that Rondo, also relating to Oscar Robertson from time to time. I also disagree with him about Embiid, but that's not really the point.

What I'm saying, Eddie, is that you continually post like a ****, and that it's annoying to continually read your posts calling out other posters, particularly when you do it out of nowhere (like you did in this thread) instead of reading posts that relate to the situation at hand, rather than your weird fixations on specific posters on specific topics, is a drag. A measure of self-awareness would be nice, and probably result in a better reading experience for many posters here.

[MBunge]

Lakers and Knicks may have tanked last season, albeit following the Kobe and Melo injuries, but it's not continuous like the Sixers has been. The last 3 years the Sixers have won 34, 19 and 18 games and another 20 game season looms.

The Sixers absolutely were not tanking when they won 34 games; they were just a legitimately bad team. That was the Bynum year. The entire reason they started tanking is because they had a decade-plus of being also-rans and winning about 30-40 games or so.

They've been tanking for less years than the Magic.

As for the Young trade, I don't see how you can argue they got poor value out of that. He had a pseudo-expiring and is an average player - getting a first rounder for him was great. It's roughly exactly what Danny got for Jeff Green. Do you think that was similarly "poor value"? Teams aren't giving up the farm for unspectacular NBA players with contracts that are either expiring or will likely expire due to a player option.

Between the 1998-99 season and the 2011-12 season, Philly made the playoffs ten times and that included a run to The Finals.  Before the last 3 seasons, they had made the playoffs 4 out of 5 years and that included a first round playoff victory.  They were not the Timberwolves.  They were not the Kings.  They were a regular playoff contender in the East.

The Magic have also not been tanking.  They've been rebuilding since Dwight said "I'm not playing for you any more."  Philly started off their tank for trading away their best player, an all-star, for a player who was injured and wasn't going to suit up for an entire season.

Mike