Knee soreness prolongs Joel Embiid's absence. Is the team truly transparent, or are they strategically conserving him for a deep playoff push?
With Joel Embiid now likely to miss his seventh straight game, his injury situation has become increasingly weirder as it simply makes little sense that he'd be out this long with just some knee soreness. The first few games that he missed this season were due to load management and were on either the first or second legs of a back-to-back.
Now, however, missing five games with knee soreness on the knee that he didn't have surgery on, he's in a much worse position and it doesn't feel like the team is being completely honest with both the fans and the media.
In the NBA, players play hurt or sore all the time, and while Embiid is a bit of an exception, he's certainly played sore in the past. To me, this makes the explanation to the whole matter rather simple, but it's not one that fans would necessarily like.
To be completely transparent, this is only my opinion and I don't have too much to back it up, but it truly does appear like the team is just coddling him this season. If there was any season in which they could and should do so, it's now, and I believe they're taking advantage of that while they can.
Tyrese Maxey is consistently putting up MVP numbers, scoring a career-high 54 points in their most recent game, leading the Sixers to an overtime victory over the Milwaukee Bucks. With this usually being Embiid's role, the team has been able to stay relatively afloat for now with him on the bench.
I'm not saying that Embiid isn't experiencing soreness, but I think that if their next game was a playoff game, he'd play close to 40 minutes if needed. The game of basketball is extremely physical and it's normal for players to be sore after a few games, especially if they're as big as Embiid.
It's very possible that they're just not pushing him in any way and are making sure that there's little-to-no soreness before he returns, just to keep the wear and tear to a minimal. Right now the team has to be conserving him as much as possible for the playoffs, and so far they've done just that, even if fans don't like their approach.
The main goal for the regular season is really to just make the postseason in some way and have Embiid as healthy as possible. If this can happen, the team will have a good shot at making a run, which wasn't expected from them at all entering this season.
It also may be the last time they have an opportunity like that, so they'd need to make the most of it and do what they can to get there. If it means barely playing Embiid in the regular season, then so be it, at least they'll have him for the playoffs.