The Sixers and Joel Embiid’s Health

[Optms]

When he rests, he gets called out for "ducking." When he plays and gets injured, the same people then slam him for caring too much about the MVP. The narratives that are created around this guy just to spew hate is funny.

[winforlose]

Recovery might be easier with a schedule that's not as tight. I like the idea of a championship at the end of the regular season, but the playoffs is so amazing, I'd hate to cut into that.

Maybe, but international basketball is also a thing, including the Olympics. Guys also work on their game in the offseason. I don’t think they want to play from October to August. Honestly, I think some of the dynasty players don’t even like playing from October to June year after year. Maybe the IST should be the regular season championship and the playoffs are for a different crown?

Ah yes, forgot about the Olympics.

IST?

In season tournament.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

Really? That's interesting. I remember making that exact point during the whole Ben Simmons saga and having most Sixer fans reply with some variation of "no, Simmons needs to disclose or else it means he's faking everything".

Which one is it? Should it be confidential or should it not?

Personally, I believe that it should absolutely be confidential but I vividly remember you arguing the opposite when it came to Simmons. Why the different stance?

I think you're right it should be confidential. People get up in their emotions, like I probably did. I still don't like him as a player, and think he's a waste of potential mainly because of his attitude. But I'm fine saying I was wrong there.

I'm not sure NBA players have the same degree of confidentiality/privacy that a normal person enjoys. We're talking about a several billions dollar business with people investing, betting etc...Something comes out sooner or later

This isn't HIPPA so it's not like it's illegal to disclose some of this stuff. As for a moral right to privacy, I'm pretty sure there is language in the contract these guys voluntarily sign where medical information can be released for competitive and marketing (aka gambling) reasons. You are paid $50m a year to play a game, it should be expected people will want to know why you aren't playing.

[winforlose]

When he rests, he gets called out for "ducking." When he plays and gets injured, the same people then slam him for caring too much about the MVP. The narratives that are created around this guy just to spew hate is funny.

There is some validity to this. I have defended Embiid for resting when his knee is fluid filled or sore, and I think that guys health should come first. But, Embiid could be fallen on when he is 100% or when he is playing at 75%. The idea that stars should be rested and kept fresh for the playoffs is antithetical to the idea that an 82 game season is sustainable. The truth is to support the 82 game model stars cannot rest, and if they want to be honored and paid above the non stars they need to do their part to carry the 82 game season so the profits are there to raise the cap and support their high end salaries.

[Crunch 99]

I think the 65 game limit for awards is pretty reasonable. If a player can't play at least 65 games, the player isn't that great imo. But I am biased from watching two former Jazz men play. John Stockton played in every single game of the season 17 different seasons. Malone played in 80 games or above 18 different seasons (counting the 49 games played in the strike-shortened 50 game season), and he played in every single game of the season ten different seasons.

By the way, does the 65 game limit also apply to break season records like points per game and assists per game? I think it should.

[Bum Adebayo]

When he rests, he gets called out for "ducking." When he plays and gets injured, the same people then slam him for caring too much about the MVP. The narratives that are created around this guy just to spew hate is funny.

I agree that some narratives about Embiid are ridiculous and pure hate, but there is no way a guy not playing in Denver for 5 straight years can be coincidence. So while it's good that he rests in order to be less injury prone in playoffs, people want to see him play in Denver, at least once in a while. It's evident there is something about the altitude that bothers him a lot compared to many other players.
He can choose to rest the Denver game one year, the next year play in Denver and rest the Warriors game for example. But always skipping the Denver game makes zero sense.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

I think the 65 game limit for awards is pretty reasonable. If a players can't play at least 65 games, the player isn't that great imo. But I am biased from two former Jazz men: John Stockton played every single game of the season 17 different seasons. Malone played every single game of the season ten times, and 80 games or above 18 different seasons (counting the 49 games played in strike shortened 50 games season).

By the way, does the 65 game limit also apply to get records like points per game and assists per game? I think it should.

Yeah honestly I don't get the hate. Even the Hali situation is that he missed a quarter of the games and doesn't get a year end bonus. As 'unfair' as it is, players who stay healthy and productive should get paid more. Idk I have trouble saying league policies are unfair where it's basically the most lucrative sports league in the world (maybe soccer is more, but I think it's only the stars). Football is waaaaay worse with the head injuries and non guaranteed contracts. Baseball has twice as many games, half the average salary and you have to play baseball. I love that they are trying to force players to play in the regular season because players and teams haven't been taking it seriously and hurting the product...coming from a season ticket holder.

[Jabroni Lames]

Hate to bring up the spectre of Greg Oden, but from a pure bio-mechanical standpoint, humans as large as Embiid & Oden were not designed to be that explosive and athletic.

[HotRocks34]

Nurse confirmed post-game that Embiid had told the medical staff he was feeling good pre-game and that was a big factor in Embiid being cleared to play.

https://sixerswire.usatoday.com/2024/01/31/nick-nurse-provides-latest-on-joel-embiid-after-sixers-fall-to-warriors/

"Obviously, medical cleared him,” Nurse added. “Joel, obviously, is a big part of that. He said he was feeling good. He’s more a little rusty. He hadn’t been on the court for five days, but he said he felt good.”

If this information is true, it may now fall on Philly's medical team to overrule Embiid when he says he's feeling good but his performance says otherwise.

[Rendei]

I’m tired of people getting **** on. If Embiid has bad damn knees then why the frick does he keep staying in blowout games?? If games are getting out of hand then he gets pulled. But he’ll stay in or comeback in to get rebound number 10 or get 30 points or Nurse is just ready to run him into the ground

12 points with 4 minutes left is not a blowout. That game is still very much within reach. Acting like it's over would absolutely be a horrible reason to pull him.

But the fact that he was hobbling around, looking hurt, and playing poorly were very good reasons to pull him.

[Chokic]

If your a star player who wants to be in these conversations for mvp, be there for the team & tough it out, make money, then you need to play a certain amount of minutes.

The point is why should Embiid or the Sixers even care so much about the MVP anymore.

A title is the only thing that should matter.

Embiid has consistently had issues with knee sprains over the course of his career. Mind boggling they’re playing him hobbled in a February game and putting him at risk of further injury.

If embiid wants to win mvp that's his prerogative and there's nothing wrong with that. Every player in any sport that has an ounce of competitiveness wants to be the best at their sport and winning a mvp is a direct reflection of that goal. To say that true professional athletes only care about winnning championships is total nonsense and it's just the politically correct thing to say. Take away their max contracts take away huge chunk of their minutes and and lets see how quickly they change their tune .They want to be the best they can be and win a title.

[Wolfgang630]

I’m tired of people getting **** on. If Embiid has bad damn knees then why the frick does he keep staying in blowout games?? If games are getting out of hand then he gets pulled. But he’ll stay in or comeback in to get rebound number 10 or get 30 points or Nurse is just ready to run him into the ground

12 points with 4 minutes left is not a blowout. That game is still very much within reach. Acting like it's over would absolutely be a horrible reason to pull him.

But the fact that he was hobbling around, looking hurt, and playing poorly were very good reasons to pull him.

Same point. He’s stayed in other games to get his points to rebounds. This game he’s clearly injured and they let him play. He told medical he was good too.

[CD_41]

If your a star player who wants to be in these conversations for mvp, be there for the team & tough it out, make money, then you need to play a certain amount of minutes.

The point is why should Embiid or the Sixers even care so much about the MVP anymore.

A title is the only thing that should matter.

Embiid has consistently had issues with knee sprains over the course of his career. Mind boggling they’re playing him hobbled in a February game and putting him at risk of further injury.

If embiid wants to win mvp that's his prerogative and there's nothing wrong with that. Every player in any sport that has an ounce of competitiveness wants to be the best at their sport and winning a mvp is a direct reflection of that goal. To say that true professional athletes only care about winnning championships is total nonsense and it's just the politically correct thing to say. Take away their max contracts take away huge chunk of their minutes and and lets see how quickly they change their tune .They want to be the best they can be and win a title.

First of all, what a stupid username.
Second, of course, he has the right to go for an MVP.
But since his health is a major problem, going for an MVP and playing in more games than he should, goes automatically against Philly winning a championship.

Most other players can go for the MVP and team success at the same time. But there are cases like Embiid where one goal seems to exclude the other one. Since he already won an MVP and also Philly had no playoff success with him, I think it is absolutely fair to criticise him for this.

[Jabroni Lames]

Nurse confirmed post-game that Embiid had told the medical staff he was feeling good pre-game and that was a big factor in Embiid being cleared to play.

https://sixerswire.usatoday.com/2024/01/31/nick-nurse-provides-latest-on-joel-embiid-after-sixers-fall-to-warriors/

"Obviously, medical cleared him,” Nurse added. “Joel, obviously, is a big part of that. He said he was feeling good. He’s more a little rusty. He hadn’t been on the court for five days, but he said he felt good.”

If this information is true, it may now fall on Philly's medical team to overrule Embiid when he says he's feeling good but his performance says otherwise.

Nurse doing a good job covering his and medical staff's butts. Basically putting all the blame on Embiid and making him look selfish.

[Nuntius]

I think the 65 game limit for awards is pretty reasonable.

Do you know how many players played 65 games or more last year? 180 players. That's 6 players per team.

An NBA team has 15 players (450 NBA players in total at any given time) but, obviously, not everyone is a part of the rotation. Most teams use a 10-man rotation throughout the RS (with some teams going deeper into 11 and others only having 9). Multiply 10 by 30 and you get 300 players which is an approximation of how many players are actually in an NBA rotation over the year.

180 is 60% of 300 which means that only about 60% of the rotational players in the league actually surpass that 65 game threshold. The rest (40% of the rotational players in the league) are disqualified.

Do you think that this is reasonable? I definitely do not. Injuries happen and due to the game's increasingly fast pace, they happen more often than ever.

Wanna see how that number changes if the threshold is lowered by a bit? Let's say if we were talking about 60 games instead of 65. If the threshold was 65 games last year then 229 players would have qualified. That's 76.3% of the league. Only 23.6% of the players would be disqualified.

If the threshold was 58 games then 245 players would have qualified. That's 81.6% of the league, leaving only 18.4% of the players disqualified.

And if the threshold was 55 games then 269 players would have qualified. That's 89.6% of the league, leaving only 10.4% of the players disqualified.

That means that most of the players who missed that threshold are the ones who sustained injuries that kept them out for around 2 months (like Nurkic who only played 8 games past February last year). But why would someone like Sochan who missed 14 of San Antonio's last 18 games primarily because the Spurs wanted to tank for Wemby should be penalized?

[SamSepiol]

This is what happens when you base when you’re going to play based on the opposing teams center and not how healthy you’re feeling.

[bebopdeluxe]

Embiid cares way too much about what people think and he cares too much about the MVP.

If he's injured, he shouldn't play. His camp just said he doesn't care about MVP and wants to be healthy for the playoffs.

Tonight's game says otherwise.

He is obviously hurt. He shouldn't play unless he is 100% - forget the MVP or seeding.

I will hold my breath while people who buried him on the GB for "ducking" Jokic post their apologies.

[jordb2k7]

Forget about all the ducking stuff, there’s something far more concerning going on here.

Do the Sixers even care about Embiid’s long term health?

This is a team that has routinely had a banged up Embiid at the pointy end of the season.

Yet here we are in February in a season where Embiid’s main goal really should be to prove himself in the playoffs and he’s out here hobbling on one leg in a random regular season game.

Then over the past few weeks they’ve put him back in games to chase meaningless streaks after he’s injured himself only to miss games after.

Either Embiid is far too obsessed with the MVP or the Sixers medical staff are just really stupid.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a team with so little regard for the long term health of their star player, particularly one so injury prone.

Same medical staff that dealt with Bynum and Fultz and let Embiid play through a torn meniscus.

He needs to be rested a month. Also this is a lot of their fault but I hope NBA fans feel some shame for the ducking allegations through out the season.

Now do people believe he couldn't play in Denver???

Good post from you.


Sent from my SM-S928B using Tapatalk

Honest question has there really been no change in the training staff over the years?

[Jabroni Lames]

Read on Twitter

Why TF didn't Nurse pull Embiid out of the game, right after this play?

Nurse is just like Thibs. This is going to end like Derrick Rose, unfortunately.

[iggymcfrack]

Honestly, this is just disgusting. How do you see a star player badly limping, clearly struggling to the point that he can’t even help the team and just decide “this is fine”, we’ll leave him in to the end? It’s a regular season game. What kind of moronic decision maker at any level let’s this happen? I feel terrible for Joel.