By the time Philadelphia leaves the court Sunday night, Joel Embiid will have played in four of the Philadelphia 76ers first 16 games this season.
Embiid missed the 76ers NBA Cup win Friday night against Brooklyn due to “managing swelling in his left knee,” the team announced. He also will not play Sunday against the Clippers, and further updates on his status are expected early next week.
Embiid had surgery on his left lateral meniscus back in February and has never been right since. He returned in time for the end of last regular season and playoffs but was clearly slowed by his knee. The same can be said of the Paris Olympics, where Steve Kerr leaned more heavily on Anthony Davis and Bam Adebayo.
Embiid needs to both get healthy and play himself back into shape. Coach Nick Nurse seemed to try to do that in Embiid’s most recent game, playing him 35 minutes Wednesday in a loss to Memphis, when Embiid had 35 points and 11 rebounds. He has not taken the court again since.
The rebuilt but top-heavy 76ers have struggled with health since training camp opened — the team’s big 3 of Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey have been on the court together for six minutes so far this season. With that, Philly has stumbled out of the gate to a 3-14 record and sit 14th in the East. Fortunately for them, they play in a down East and are just 3.5 games out of the No. 6 seed — there is, in theory, plenty of time to turn this around — but it will take more than rookie Jared McCain bailing them out.
