Report: Joel Embiid’s 76ers Injury Management ‘Likely’ to Be Investigated by NBA

Joseph Zucker@@JosephZuckerFeatured Columnist IVOctober 23, 2024

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The NBA is likely to look into the Philadelphia 76ers’ management plan for star center Joel Embiid, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania.

Embiid missed the entire preseason and the team announced Tuesday he’ll be sidelined for the first week of the regular season.

The 2022-23 MVP has battled injuries throughout his NBA career. Most recently a torn meniscus sidelined him for nearly the entire second half of last year.

Embiid, who turned 30 in March, told ESPN’s Tim Bontemps he and the Sixers plan to be even more proactive to keep him as healthy as possible.

He showed up to training camp around 25 to 30 pounds lighter in order to ease the pressure on his knees. In terms of his workload, he signaled his intention to avoid playing on back-to-back nights.

“If I had to guess, I would probably never play back-to-backs the rest of my career,” Embiid said.

President of basketball operations Daryl Morey also told Bontemps the Sixers are “going to be smart about it” in terms of load management, and that could include limiting Paul George on back-to-backs as well.

Especially since the NBA instituted new rest rules starting last year, an investigation into the Sixers’ handling of Embiid was inevitable, and the inquiry itself isn’t evidence Philadelphia is doing anything wrong.

There are various exceptions that allow players to sit out without their team getting penalized. The Sixers will obviously try to argue that Embiid’s injury history allows him to fall under that category.