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What Is Going On With Joel Embiid’s Surgery?

By Josh Wilson

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Hey Philadelphia 76ers fans, sick of hearing about Joel Embiid yet? I’m sorry. Sick of hearing about his injured foot yet? I’m sorry again. Unfortunately, while this should be a topic that has been long out of the door, it has not been that way, and it keeps coming back.

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Starting off this offseason, we knew Embiid was having some setbacks with his injury. Later on, we found out more, and learned that he was going to be requiring surgery on his foot, yet again, which would likely take him out of the entire regular season. This was tough news, but bearable, since we have Jahlil Okafor who was picked up in the draft to make up for some what Embiid was expected to do.

Then, the heartbreak really started, when we unfortunately found out that it wasn’t just some setbacks, it was actually a fact that Embiid’s navicular bone in his foot had been re-broken. This was tough to hear because, in the way it was presented, and the way it became public knowledge to fans, it appeared that the 76ers were not being completely honest about the situation.

Come on, Sixers, you can’t play with the hearts of fans who just went through an 18 win season like this!

But wait, it gets worse. Although we know Embiid needs surgery, we haven’t been given a timetable yet by the team (thanks again, Sixers), and we wait with anxiety to find out when his surgery will occur.

I know, it seems somewhat pointless to be wondering when the surgery will be, but fans like to know these things since they can immediate be waiting to hear from the team and make sure the surgery was successful the next day, or even the same day.

Now, despite a clear distrust between the Sixers fans and organization, the Sixers still reportedly have no plans whatsoever to release information or a statement regarding the future of the upcoming surgery.

Of course, we’re wondering, “why?” What did we do to deserve this? We’re loyal fans, and just want to know what is going on with the sitatuion. It’s unclear why the surgery has been delayed, and why Embiid has yet to get the surgery, or at least, why we have yet to hear anything about it.

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There’s numerous possibilities that coul have happened with this surgery situation that would lead the team to not speak on the matter publicly yet. Let’s explore a few.

  1. The team has already gotten the surgery done. This could be a possibility, and could go one of two ways. The bad way it could have gone, is that they got the surgery done without announcing when it would be, and the surgery was unsuccessful, so they’re delaying their announcement. In today’s world and with the advances the human race has made in the medical field, I highly doubt that a surgery on a broken bone went unsuccessfully, so let’s look at the other scenario inside this larger scenario. The flip side would be that the surgery has been completed, and it was successful. The mystery here then would become why hasn’t the team said anything about it yet? This leads me to believe this is not why the team is being so quiet.
  2. The team is exploring other options. Although surgery was the clear cut answer a few weeks ago, maybe they’re looking at a different way to approach this injury. Maybe they’re talking to other doctors to get a second or third opinion on the matter, and see if just some plain old rest (and video game therapy) would be more helpful than a surgery. When he was seen out by TMZ a while ago, he wasn’t even wearing a boot on his foot, and maybe they’re exploring something like that.
  3. Embiid is uncomfortable with this information being public. Imagine your health records are out there, for the world to see? On top of that, imagine hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of people, picking apart the information derived from your records? Just the thought of that makes me somewhat uncomfortable, and I’d even consider myself to be a fairly healthy individual. Embiid clearly isn’t great with talking to the media about his injury yet (based on the TMZ video game therapy referenced earlier), and might not be happy that in the past, things have been so public about the injury. He could have requested that the team keeps things as secretive as possible until absolutely necessary. This is an odd thing to request for a pro sports player, but it’s a possibility.

There’s probably plenty of reasons why we haven’t heard much from the Sixers front office on Embiid’s injury. Despite the fact that we know it’s probably not a big deal that we haven’t heard anything, it’s still hard not to be antsy over the fact that something could have gone wrong. Let’s hope the team doctors and people calling the shots know exactly what they should be doing, and have a good reason for keeping things quiet.

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