76ers Media Day Reaction 👀 Joel Embiid addresses return from knee injury | NBA Today

76ers Media Day Reaction 👀 Joel Embiid addresses return from knee injury | NBA Today

Hey, welcome to NBA Today. I’m Malikica Andrews. So far, five of the 30 NBA teams, they’ve held their media days. And this morning, it was the Philadelphia 76ers turn. So, Philly, it may be the team with the most question marks, at least I think, heading into this season. Last year at this time, they had the second best odds to win the East right behind the Boston Celtics. But things of course came crashing down unfortunately quickly here. Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxi, Paul George, Jared McCain, they combined to miss 188 games last season. Remember both Embiid and McCain, they dealt with those knee injuries. Paul George, he had a wide variety of injuries, but the latest was an adductor issue. And then Tyrese Maxi, he missed most of March with that back injury. This morning, we heard from Joel Embiid for the first time since his April knee surgery. Take a listen. Feel pretty good. Um, I think we uh we made a lot of progress over the last couple months. Um, we got a plan in place. Um, trying to check all the boxes. So, everybody that knows me knows that I want to play. I’ve been pretty unlucky when it comes to that. Um, you know, compared to, you know, most NBA players. I don’t I think I’m past the stage of focusing on ceilings. I think, you know, going forward, you know, we just going to listen to the body and, you know, I’d be honest and say that, you know, he’s going to be unpredictable at times and that’s okay. All right, Tibon Dempsey covers the 76ers for ESPN. Our senior insider, Sham Shiranya, our analyst, Monica Mcnut. Let’s break this all down. Shams, I’m going to start with you here because what I didn’t hear in between what Joel Embiid said was when we’re actually going to see him on the floor. What are the 76ers expectations here? My understanding is even the Philadelphia 76ers don’t know exactly when Joel Embiid is going to play, when he’s not going to be playing. Remember last season there were moments where there was builtup frustration that was occurring in the locker room around that coaching staff about Joel Embiid, his availability, when he was playing. no one literally knew and it created confusion around that organization. The reality is his knee issues have been debilitating and he’s essentially going to have to master learning how to play through issues, pain thresholds any given day. And a lot of it, like he said, the unknown of uh the the reality that he will be feeling different ways after a day of workouts and one day of workout might be different than another day and that might lead him to potentially miss time. and they just don’t know quite yet. They have their first day of training camp practice tomorrow. Let’s see how much, if at all, Joel Embiid participates. Monica, I don’t want to be the home of all things Bummer to start the show, but I don’t love the sound of that. No. And and immediately my thought after that statement, Shams, is okay, regular season is one thing. The cadence of a postseason potentially is an entirely different beast. even if this team is to get to that point. I know that’s a big leap, but yeah, you would take whatever you can get because we know how dominant Joel Embiid can be when he is healthy, but you can’t skirt the nature of an actual postseason format and the turnaround there. Well, forget the postseason. Let’s just go back to what Joelle said there, right? That he’s uncertain about how he’s going to feel from day to day and that he and the team are okay with that and they’re going to have to live with that. And that and to Shams’s point, that’s been the problem for the Sixers now for going on a decade, right? like Joel Embiid has for as incredible a talent as he is, he’s obviously missed a ton of time with injuries and it makes it very hard to plan as an organization to know what your team is going to do. And that is what they’re going to be clearly dealing with throughout this season. I mean, you can see it right here in this graph. Like, it’s just crazy the amount of time one of the best players on the planet has had to miss with injury. It just makes it very difficult to plan. Makes it very difficult to know dayto-day what the season’s going to look like. And it’s why last year he was barely on the court. And I I think everyone involved is hoping for a different story this year, but you know, we didn’t hear today when he’s going to be back on the court. And that’s the biggest thing everyone wants to know. And I think as fans of Joel Embiid after an off season, right, you you sit around and think, okay, well, what was happening over the last couple of months? Because we haven’t heard from Joelle since since he had that surgery in April. So, what was happening behind the scenes? What have folks told you about this summer? Well, if you look at how Joel has looked in these videos that have come out and you look at sort of the way he looked today immediately, he definitely looks slimmed down, right? And something we talked about before last season was trying he wants to try to emulate Tim Duncan in the latter half of his career. A guy who as he got older, he slimmed down, put less wear and tear on his joints, on his knees, on his feet to be able to try to stay out on the court and be as healthy as possible. But I think as you heard in that clip too, like this is now going on the better part of 15 months where Embiid and the Sixers have been trying to figure out how to get him on the court consistently with these ongoing knee issues. And I think if you’re a Philly fan, the concerning thing about today, while it’s good to hear Joel say he’s doing some things on the court, there’s obviously been the videos of him doing some stuff, it still doesn’t seem like they’ve got that entirely sorted out. And I think just for as basketball fans, us all hoping to see him on the court, I think it’s definitely concerning that we’re sitting here at the start of another training camp with no clear road map to when Joel Embiid is going to play. Listen, I for one would take Joel Embiid for 40 games if that’s what you can give me, right? But I do think as we all have consumed ball and as we go into media days and one of the topics that is um effervescent, if you will, is the chemistry around the team and it does mess with the cadence and the consistency and the spacing and the whole bit. So, this is a thing to be figured out on a number of levels. I just remember the game in Miami where they had the players only meeting that whole day. Joel Embiid, no one around the entire team saw him, heard from him at all all day. Then he shows up for warm-ups, plays in that game. The game didn’t go well. Tim might have been there and then they have that players only meeting and then their season went the way it went. Yeah, he’s under contract to the 28-29 season. So, there’s something that’s going to be have to be figured out here. But to your point about chemistry, this was a team, Monica, as you know, that was built to be able to withstand some version of Joel Embiid needing to manage his body and miss time. From a motivational standpoint, um can’t get no worse than last year, right? Like um that was a rock bottom kind of season. Um I think it was a disappointment to be honest. There was a lot of piss piss offidness in my summer this year. And I think you guys all understand why it didn’t didn’t was not what we wanted. We need a standard like this is who we are every single day. No matter who plays, no matter who doesn’t play. Um when you see Philadelphia 76ers, this is what you see. You’re going to see that team every single night. Um I walk around Center City every day. I see the excitement of the Eagles. I see the Phillies playoffs. um this off seasonason without working every day to get ourselves back uh to being in those conversations. Yeah, Philly fans, this is what they want to see. They they ride for their city. So, Monica, is there a version? You have covered the New York Knicks closely. You is there a version of this team that could be at the top of this girl? I listen, I’m never going to say never because things happen in sports, right? And again, when you look at this roster, and I love Tyrese Maxi. I love what he said. If they do develop a standard, right, even if it is a bunch of let me go figure out who that person is and what school they went to, but playing hard and they can be consistent, I’m not going to completely rule it out, right? I’m not going to completely rule it out. But right now, I think with the uncertainty around such a key piece in Joel Embiid, I this is a uphill battle for sure. Well, the question is, is there a world where this could happen, right? Yes, there is a world where this could happen. If Joel Embiid is healthy, if Paul George is healthy, if Tyrese Maxi is healthy when, as you said, Monica, this team gets to the playoffs, if they can get there, they’re going to be a team no one’s going to want to play if those guys are on the court, right? And again, there’s probably no bigger if in the NBA than if the Philadelphia 76ers will be healthy. But if those three guys are on the court, they’re as good as anybody in the Eastern Conference. They can give anybody in the Eastern Conference a run for their money. But again, that all comes back to the central question. Will Joel Embiid be able to play? When will he be able to play? How good will he be able to play? until we know the answers to that question, you can’t say that world exists because it’s sort of living in a dreamcape. I feel like this over the entire beginning of the show, it’s just been like, I’m sorry, guys. I promise we’re going to get to some good news eventually, but not maybe maybe at some point you reported yesterday on our show uh Tim did that that Jared McCain is out with a UCL tear in his right thumb. It feels like everything is compounding here. What update do you have for us on that front? Sources tell me Jared McCain is expected to undergo surgery on that right thumb and be sidelined approximately four to six weeks. So he will be out to start the regular season and then from there you hope that he’s going to be able to make a return. His season last year ended in a devastating way. He was in route to potentially being the rookie of the year. He has a torn meniscus. He’s out the rest of the season and now his season will start off with him on the sideline. But four to six weeks is the approximate timeline he will be out after undergoing that surgery. Shams, thank you. So, at least four to six weeks before we see Jared McCain on the floor. Before we head to break, guys, I’m not going to play the sound again, but we have some unfortunate news. Uh, before we take this thing to commercial, the Trailblazers, they announced that guard Scoot Henderson, he sustained a left hamstring tear during an offseason workout this week. He is expected to return to basketball activities in four to eight weeks. We are wishing our a quick recovery here to Scoot. All right. down [Applause] with the heat. I’m CDA on the

NBA Today’s Malika Andrews, Shams Charania, Monica McNutt and Tim Bontemps discuss the Philadelphia 76ers media day where Joel Embiid spoke about progressing from a knee injury with no timetable set for return.

0:00 Philly’s Media Day
0:48 Joel Embiid
1:40 76ers expectations for Embiid
6:06 Media Day highlights
7:07 How can they become contenders?

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