Well, this isn\u2019t optimal.<\/p>\n
Joel Embiid has been ruled out for the Philadelphia 76ers\u2019 visit to the New Orleans Pelicans set for Saturday evening according to the team\u2019s injury report. The news comes after the team announced back on Wednesday that Embiid had reported right shin soreness over the All-Star break and would be re-evaluated before this weekend. He is officially listed as out for both right knee injury management and right shin soreness.<\/p>\n
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This will be Embiid\u2019s fourth straight game sidelined, missing two before the break and now at least two following it. The Sixers have gone 0-3 in the last three without him. Before this hiatus, the big fella had gone about a month of consistent playing without missing games unplanned (planned absences being one leg of each back-to-back).<\/p>\n
This doesn\u2019t bode well for the Sixers who have looked an absolute mess without Embiid. Earlier in the season, the squad was finding ways to win some games even without the star center. More recently? Not so much. Since Dec. 23 (when his most consistent playing stint began), Embiid has averaged 30.0 points on 52.7% field goal shooting with 8.0 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.0 block across 20 games. That\u2019s not even to mention the non-statistical contributions his presence provides on the floor such as game-changing spacing thanks to the attention he commands from opposing defenses. Without him, the Sixers\u2019 threats are limited, and it makes them much easier to defend against (as we\u2019ve all seen as this point).<\/p>\n
It certainly doesn\u2019t help that Paul George is also unavailable to play due to his suspension, too, but it really feels like the Sixers squad had gotten very comfortable with specifically Embiid being out there with them. Now, they\u2019re scrambling and struggling again without him, and it hasn\u2019t been pretty. Most recently, on Thursday night, they lost to Atlanta, making the sub-.500 Hawks team look a lot better than they actually are in the process.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s matchup against the Pelicans is the first leg of a road back-to-back for the Sixers, and there\u2019s no word yet on whether the team is considering re-evaluating Embiid before the second leg visiting the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Either way, the rest of the team is going to have to figure out a way to put up some level of a fight without him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Well, this isn\u2019t optimal. Joel Embiid has been ruled out for the Philadelphia 76ers\u2019 visit to the New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3796],"tags":[208,7,936,152,6,478,470,4073,4072,526,675,4015,678,207],"class_list":{"0":"post-614867","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-pelicans","8":"tag-atlanta-hawks","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-joel-embiid","11":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-new-orleans","14":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","15":"tag-neworleans","16":"tag-neworleanspelicans","17":"tag-paul-george","18":"tag-pelicans","19":"tag-pennsylvania","20":"tag-philadelphia","21":"tag-philadelphia-76ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116106099889180233","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}