Brett Brown ruled out Joel Embiid for Tuesday's home game against the Magic following practice Monday afternoon.
Embiid missed the last five games with a self-imposed injury absence due to left knee soreness, and according Brown, it showed when Embiid practiced Monday.
"He just doesn't feel like he's ready to go," Brown said on Monday when asked why Embiid has missed more time than projected. "He really does feel restricted with some of his movements. There's a little bit of soreness I think still. You could see in this practice environment that he hasn't played for a while. It is what it is."
As far as the answer to that specific question, Brown doesn't know why Embiid missed this much time.
"I can tell you what I saw today in practice," Brown said, "you could tell that he has not played basketball in a while."
That's not ideal for the Sixers or Embiid, who admittedly gets out of shape very quickly. There's only 19 regular season games left before the playoffs start in the middle of April. It makes you wonder how he'll be used whenever he does return.
"I'm going to have to be responsible with how we integrate him back," Brown said. "As far as the minutes that that equals, we all get the role that he will play once he's on the floor. None of us are going to be able to guess what the minute accumulation will be. I'm going to learn about how I'm going to play him from a rotational standpoint. What's the tolerance of his clumps of minutes? Is it five minute clumps? Is it seven minute clumps like it used to be type stuff? But, as it plays out, I don't know. The wish obviously will be to just get him in a playing rhythm, a consistent playing rhythm. Get him his 34 minutes and let him play with his team for as much as the remaining 19 games that we have."
Embiid stated Saturday night that the days of minutes restrictions are over.
"No restriction," Embiid said. "We are past that. Everybody's got to stop worrying injuries. It's all in the past behind me. We've been through it."
We'll see if no restrictions hold true. It's hard to stop worrying about injuries when he's dealt with something every year since leaving Kansas, albeit last season was a freak injury with his face.
If Brown is forced to slowly work Embiid back into being a 30-plus minute a game player, that could affect the outcomes of games, especially ones against Houston, Indiana, Sacramento, Milwaukee and Boston coming up in the next three or so weeks. The Boston game is on the second leg of a back-to-back. Same with a second Milwaukee matchup in April at home.
Not only that, Brown needs to use the next month-and-a-half to make sure the chemistry of the team is acceptable for postseason basketball. Let's be honest, this is a fairly new roster, and Embiid has barely played with Tobias Harris as well as the bench additions.
"It's obviously not ideal," Brown said. "It's not even close to being ideal. But, that's my job, to figure it out and keep these other guys playing and getting their own stuff as polished up as I can."
And let's just say the Sixers seeding takes a hit if Embiid misses more time or isn't in tip-top shape. It's hard to ignore that Boston is strugglingly mightily these days, however that doesn't change the fact they've owned the Sixers. If the playoffs started today, the Sixers would have home court advantage of the Celtics in a four-five matchup, but based on past history, big whoop.
Sixers owner Joshua Harris told ESPN last week that "it would be problematic" if the Sixers were eliminated by the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs. It wouldn't sit well with the organization or fan base if, for some reason, the Sixers were ousted earlier than last season, especially with the fire power they added.
The Embiid situation is tricky though. He's the franchise "crown jewel," as Brown often states. In the land of hypotheticals, what takes a greater priority come playoff time—making sure Embiid is good to go for the postseason or thinking in the best interest for his career?
"Well, I mean, that's a hell of a question," Brown said with maybe a wee bit of annoyance in his tone. "I mean, you know, choose how you want to not live. It's obviously his career rules the day. His career rules the day. I don't know if they're, maybe they're mutually exclusive. I'm not too sure about that. So, obviously the long term with anybody is the correct answer."
Given the high expectations his season, asked #Sixers head coach Brett Brown what takes a higher priority come the playoffs:-Making sure Joel Embiid is good for the playoffs-Making sure Joel Embiid is good for the rest of his career pic.twitter.com/EcGGHxkbKR
— Dave Uram (@MrUram) March 4, 2019In fairness, there may be nothing to worry about. Maybe this time off will help Embiid's knee and he'll be as terrific as usual. Only time will tell. Thus, the coming weeks will sure be interesting regarding the status of "The Process," Joel Embiid.
