Philadelphia 76ers Would You Rather: Health to Joel or Ben Next Season?

The Philadelphia 76ers have had incredible health problems over the last few years. If Sixers fans have to choose, who should be healthy next year?

The offseason is here for the Philadelphia 76ers, and with that comes a slow in the news cycle. So, why not play Would You Rather?

The Sixers are known for having incredibly awful health every single year. Nerlens Noel missed his entire rookie year due to injury. Joel Embiid missed two full seasons due to injury. Ben Simmons missed his first full year. Jahlil Okafor always seems to have a torn meniscus.

I really could go on and on, but I don’t want to provoke too many tears with this article.

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The point is, the Sixers have been riddled with injury issues over the past several seasons. At some point, the hope is that it will stop. Sixers fans seem to assume it will, although it seems a bit ridiculous to expect injury issues in so many different places to just stop all of a sudden once the team has enough talent to be competitive.

So, without further ado, let’s talk about a hypothetical. Would You Rather is a fun game to play in almost any setting, and it could do well here, too.

Before I get into it, I want to be clear — this is 100 percent hypothetical, and not based off of any reports or rumors with the Simmons or Embiid injury. For all we currently know, we should expect them both to play next season.

If you had to choose between Ben Simmons being healthy for next season (all 82 games with no setbacks, with general resting here and there and potentially no back-to-backs) while Embiid sits out with injury for the whole year, or vice versa (Embiid playing, Simmons sitting for a second consecutive season), which do you pick to play?

For me, it’s actually really tough. On one hand, you want Simmons to get on the court, but to see Embiid miss two full seasons, play 31 games, and then miss another full season would be devastating and perhaps indicative that he may never play a lengthy season or career.

On the other hand, do you really want another two-year redshirt on your team?

My answer is — at this point — actually yes, I do want that, if I have to choose.

Look, I don’t believe in everything this organization does. They have a lot they need to clean up and they do a lot of things wrong. But there are some things they’ve done right, and one of those things is player development.

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While they could have looked at Embiid’s two years off and worked lightly with him, just preparing for him to be healthy again, they instead took a more aggressive route, working with him extensively to improve his game in any way they could while his foot was healing. They realized that although his lower body was largely immobilized because of the foot, they could still work on shooting motions and techniques. So what we saw was a 7-foot-2 big man that probably wouldn’t have had any shot from beyond the arc coming in as a rookie shooting 35 percent from beyond the arc with over 3 attempts per game by the time he was ready to actually play.

We could very well see the same thing with Simmons if he — please, no — happened to miss his second full season as well. Since one of the biggest drawbacks about him is his jump-shot, I would hope the Sixers could use the extra time to work on his form and refine it just like they did with Embiid. It could turn Simmons into a next level player.

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To me, this isn’t a huge question. If we have to choose one player to be injured next season between Embiid and Simmons, we should choose Simmons. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!

Sixers Would You Rather: Health to Simmons, or Health to Embiid?

By Josh Wilson | Apr 29, 2017

The Philadelphia 76ers have had incredible health problems over the last few years. If Sixers fans have to choose, who should be healthy next year?

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