The Sixer Sense
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Philadelphia 76ers Injuries Harkens Back to St. Joes Basketball

By Dan Falcone

Nov 9, 2015; Philadelphia, PA, USA; The Philadelphia 76ers logo on the warm up shirt of center Jahlil Okafor (not pictured) prior to action against the Chicago Bulls at Wells Fargo Center. The Bulls won 111-88. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 9, 2015; Philadelphia, PA, USA; The Philadelphia 76ers logo on the warm up shirt of center Jahlil Okafor (not pictured) prior to action against the Chicago Bulls at Wells Fargo Center. The Bulls won 111-88. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Philadelphia 76ers are not the only team in the area that has had to deal with terrible injury woes.

The Philadelphia 76ers have had a rough time with injuries in the recent past. Some of these have been accepted as a calculated risk as seen in the acquisition of Nerlens Noel in 2014, who entered the league while recovering from a torn ACL. Noel, a Kentucky Wildcat was competing against the University of Florida and after an insulting blocked shot and trailing a play full speed, he caromed into the SEC basket brace. It was an awful sight as Nerlens shouted in pain.

Noel missed the entire season of 2013-2014. After healing and six months of rehab, Noel competed as a rookie in 2014-2015 and made a strong run at Rookie of the Year. His NBA play is a high-wire act. He runs the floor and can do everything on the basketball court that is rare including transition defense and hustle plays and feats that require amazing athletic bursts.

Incidentally, Noel is currently hurt and missed the first pre-season game.

Then there was the emergence of Joel Embiid, another calculated risk by the 76ers. Embiid had surgery just a week before his selection in 2014. He was a great pick, but unlike Noel, the Sixers have yet to reap the full benefits of his extraordinary prowess, boatloads of promise, and physical gifts. But as of now, he has missed both the 2014-2015 and  2015-2016 seasons.

Embiid played recently in an October 4 preseason game versus Boston. He looked, um, pretty special:

His game is obviously advanced: footwork, poise, fluidity, ball-handling, and shooting accuracy. The name of the game will be of course: staying healthy.

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That brings us to the most recent, pressing and obvious cause for concern. On September 30, 2016 Ben Simmons turned his ankle in Sixers 5 on 5 play. X-rays showed a fracture and an estimation to miss 3-4 months of play. Not the best news for our number one selection overall, who like all, we wish a speedy recovery. At the moment, the discussion over Simmons centers around how and when he might make it back this season — it could be wise to sit out the year, something no on wants to hear.

The city has seen another team lose their top three players in consecutive seasons before. That team was the Saint Joseph University Hawks. The players? Rap Curry, Bernard Blunt and Bernard Jones.

In 1991, point guard Rap Curry, a sophomore, tore his ACL in his left knee. The team was supposed to fly to great heights that season, but Rap was sidelined only 7 games into the year. What was even worse is that the season counted as a year of Curry’s eligibility: Rap played 25 percent of the season, and the NCAA cut-off at the time was 20 percent of the season in terms of counting eligibility.

In 1993, during a summer-league game at Temple University, St. Joseph’s Bernard Jones’s left knee imploded. Jones was an All-State performer from Roman Catholic and entered St. Joe’s with incredible promise. Jones made it all the way back to eventual court time and then injured his good knee! It was like this for St. Joe’s in the early 1990s.

Also in 1993, for the Hawks, it was Bernard Blunt, a player with extreme pro-potential like Curry, but with a bona fide NBA scorer’s disposition. His injury was severe as he fractured his knee cap. The terrible injury was only three games into St. Joe’s year versus the University of Arizona Wildcats. Blunt was on his way to eclipsing the (at the time) scoring record of Craig Amos. He was a likely pro, until the injury.

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The common thread here obviously is that these are both Philly teams that experienced a string of bad luck with their top three players as they entered an exciting time period with a rare assemblage of elite talent. St. Joseph’s won the Atlantic 10 in 1996 with a brand new team and had success beyond with Jameer Nelson and company. But we were all left wondering what might have been with Curry, Jones and Blunt. All had NBA potential before the injuries, as well as destined to enter Big Five greatness.

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Our hope for the Sixers? That we avoid what the great John Greenleaf Whitier once wrote: “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, “it might have been.”