Joel Embiid's Latest Setback Threatens to Derail 76ers
Joel Embiid has rarely been the picture of health for the Philadelphia 76ers. He's missed 42 games so far this year, and he's not going to return any time soon. His latest setback is likely to cost him the rest of the season, even if the 6ers survive the Play-In (or make the playoffs outright). It could derail what was once a potentially promising season.
Joel Embiid has appendix surgery
Just a few hours before tipoff on Thursday night, it was revealed that 76ers center Joel Embiid had appendicitis. He had surgery that day as the 76ers fell to the Houston Rockets. The loss was a crushing blow to their hopes of getting out of the Play-In. The loss of Embiid is even more crushing.
"It is a tough blow," head coach Nick Nurse said. "I think that the biggest thing right now is that Joel comes out of the surgery as best as possible and all that goes well. That's where most of my thoughts are right now."
He continued, "I was told this morning, but they had said that he had in the middle of the night -- like 3, 3:30 or something -- contacted them to say he was not feeling well. And so I think that's kind of when this particular incident started."
When a doctor arrived, they decided to do the surgery there in Houston. "We've got to pick ourselves up," Nurse said. "I'm the leader of the team, I've got to pick the guys up and they'll understand the situation and we've got to be professional and we've got to go try to figure it out the best we can."
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East standings
The 76ers lost, so they are now tied for eighth with the Charlotte Hornets. The only reason they have the eighth seed and not the ninth is due to a head-to-head tiebreaker. Both are 43-37, but the 76ers won the season series.
Both those teams are two games up on the 10th-seeded Miami Heat. They're also one game back of the Orlando Magic for seventh. Philadelphia, despite the setback, remains just two games back of the Toronto Raptors and Atlanta Hawks, who hold the East's final two guaranteed playoff spots.
There are two games remaining, so one loss or one Hawks and Raptors win would mean Philadelphia is locked into the Play-In. But more importantly, they're in a dangerous position within the Play-In. Should they fall behind the Hornets, they'd have to win two games to advance. If they stay eighth or seventh, they need to win once out of the two tournament games.
That makes a big difference for a banged-up team. They could survive needing to win just once in two contests, but needing to win twice, including a potential road game, is not an ideal situation to be in, but it's the new reality.
Injury woes
The 76ers have a ton of talent. On the first day of the season, they had Paul George, Tyrese Maxey, and Joel Embiid, all of whom have either made an All-NBA team fairly recently or are poised to make them in the near future. They also had VJ Edgecombe, who is likely to finish third in Rookie of the Year voting.
All of them, with the exception of Edgecombe, who has only missed seven games, have spent time on the injury report. Maxey's played 68 out of 80 games. Embiid, as mentioned, has only played 38. George, thanks to a suspension, has played 35. That's a lot of talent missing a lot of games.
It didn't help that once-promising rookie Jared McCain was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder after recovering from a knee injury suffered last year.
