Joel Embiid finally sounds willing to load manage for the regular season

Load management has arguably been the biggest hurdle for the Sixers in the Joel Embiid era. The big fella finally sounds open to prioritizing playoff health over everything else.

Quick, what’s been the biggest hurdle for the Sixers in the post-Process, Joel Embiid era? Ben Simmons has been gone for years. James Harden wasn’t there for the Hawks or Knicks series. We can’t quite pin it all on those guys even if we really wanted to. But if your answer had something to do with Embiid’s health, well then, here’s some good news.

Embiid says he’s lost a 25-30 lbs. heading into his 11th year in the NBA since Kansas. And he’s at least saying the right things about being open to more rest games this year.

At Sixers media day, Embiid had this to say:

“[Daryl Morey] would tell you this: as soon as we lost last year, I texted him and I was like ‘we’ve got to do whatever it takes to make sure that, in the postseason, I’m healthy.’

“This year, there’s no agenda — All-Star, All-NBA, there’s none of that. It’s whatever it takes to make sure that I get to that point and I’m ready to go. For basically every single year of my career, I’ve been hurt in the playoffs. I think that’s the goal. It’s all about doing whatever it takes to get there. Physically, I’m OK. I’m not where I want to be, and I know I’ve got their support and they all want the same thing. Until I’m at that point where they feel like I’m ready to go, I’m sure they’re going to hold me back. Like I said, the focus is on whatever it takes to get to that stage and be healthy. I believe, with the guys that we have and what I can bring to the table, we have a pretty good chance.”

Embiid playoff injuries recap

Embiid is right, it seems like there’s always something holding him back from dominating in the playoffs.

In 2018, an unfortunate regular season dribble handoff collision with Markelle Fultz crushed Embiid’s orbital bone, necessitating a cumbersome and sweaty “Phantom of the Process” mask upon his return. That made his first playoff appearance, and a round two date with the Boston Celtics, that much more challenging.

In 2019, Joel pushed through ankle and back issues during the winter before some knee tendinitis cropped up around All-Star break and cost him the key home stretch of games. That issue (which cost him a playoff game vs. Brooklyn) and the accompanying conditioning hurdles were there costing him some speed and power vs. the Toronto Raptors.

In 2020 he was healthy, but without Ben Simmons (dislocated knee-cap) in the bubble, the Sixers were swiftly swept by the Celtics.

In 2021, he was forced to miss the All-Star game due to COVID protocols, and in his first game back, Embiid tried to prove to the world he was the best and hyperextended a knee, suffering a bone bruise while posterizing several Wizards in extended garbage time of a March game.

Then after recovering, later with a 3-0 lead over those same Wizards in round one, Embiid tried to posterize the gargantuan Robin Lopez, who took a hard foul sending Embiid to the wood. It was a dangerous attempt in a closeout game where a simple pull up jumper could have sufficed. Joel only missed one game but wouldn’t look the same the next round vs. Atlanta. That injury has been overshadowed by Simmons’ own struggles, but you know Joel wouldn’t have let the Hawks steal three games at the crib if he’d been fully healthy.

2022

A torn thumb was the first issue sustained in Game 3 vs. the Raptors in round one. Then Doc Rivers left Joel in during extended garbage time where Joel was still playing hard in Game 6 when Pascal Siakam delivered an eye-socket shattering blow. Embiid missed the first two games vs. the Miami Heat by round two. Philadelphia fell into an 0-2 hole and upon return, Embiid was a beast but still not himself, once again forced to play in a cumbersome mask.

2023

Down 2-0, Jacques Vaughn used knock out and octagon metaphors before a pivotal Game 3 of the 2023 NBA Playoffs. Vaughn’s players may have taken the first-year coach a bit literally as they sent Joel to the locker room with some crushing lower back shivers. Upon return, not quite healthy looking, Embiid tried for a track down block on Cam Johnson, whose legs scissored Embiid’s in a tangled fall.

Joel suffered an LCL sprain which is typically a 4-6 week recovery period. He’d miss the closeout Game 4 vs. Brooklyn and Game 1 vs. Boston before returning.

Unfortunately, Game 6 took place merely 21 days after Embiid’s injury, and it was apparent on isolations vs. Al Horford that Joel didn’t have that signature burst which had propelled him to MVP that same season.

2024

As if those disasters weren’t reason enough to make key changes in his load management process, Embiid (and the fans) suffered another — perhaps the most frustrating one of all in how easily it could have been avoided.

Déjà vu from 2019, Embiid was battling some injury woes when attempting to suit up for a game vs. the Golden State Warriors. The networks and talk shows were trashing Joel for “ducking Nikola Jokic in Denver,” as silly as that idea was.

Making matters worse, the Sixers could barely win a third of their games without Embiid in the lineup last season. So Joel pushed himself to play in Golden State despite dealing with knee pain and swelling. Reports at the time indicated that Joel may have been mindful of the media criticism regarding the Jokic matchup and the minimum number of games he’d have to appear in to qualify for MVP and All-NBA awards.

So when Embiid now says this award stuff is in the rearview, one can only hope it’s not your standard variety lip service.

According to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps, a playful Embiid had more to add on this subject, from Sixers training camp in the Bahamas last week:

“It’ll be tough… They know that if they have to punch me, slap me, take my stuff away from me [to] not to get on that court, they’re going to have to do it. I might get mad, I might curse people out, but I think it’s a relationship. We’ve been working together for years now. Now I look at the big picture, and I’ve always listened to them, but now it’s even more of the time where I should listen and see what they have to say.”

It’s funny, this idea that someone may have to punch or slap Jo or take away his things to make him sit. But Tyrese Maxey was right there to interject some levity joking (but not joking) that that’s his job now:

And after earning Most Improved and an All-Star berth, after ripping Knicks’ fans hearts out in both Game 2 (they lost anyway because of crappy calls) and Game 5 (they won because Maxey went insane and the refs didn’t rob them again) of last season’s playoffs, maybe Tyrese has earned this role. Maybe Joel will now listen to him instead of silly ESPN pundits claiming he’s scared of Joker.

Maybe things have finally changed. I’ll believe it when I see it, but I am hopeful.

As fans, we’ve yet to see Embiid healthy heading into the second round of the playoffs. That’s my answer to the original question about the team’s biggest hurdle of the Embiid era: what if he’d been healthy for even one second round? And if we never get to see that, he could go down as one of the greatest “what ifs” in league history. Nobody wants that… outside of maybe New York and Boston.

There are no guarantees that resting when banged up in February will ensure playoff health for anyone, including Joel Embiid. Astute readers will certainly note Embiid made it to the playoffs healthy three times and still picked up an injury in two of those three appearances. But Process doubters once incessantly reminded us that the NBA draft lottery offers no guarantees and well… increasing one’s probabilities and controlling what one can is why we’ve been so lucky to have this superstar in the first place. And with Paul George, Tyrese Maxey, Caleb Martin and Andre Drummond here to help on those nights Joel sits? Why not keep playing the odds and limiting at least some regular season risk?