Philadelphia 76ers were flawed last season; have those flaws been fixed?
Jo…El Em…biiiiiid!!!
(Matt Cord pronunciation of his name)
The flaw:
There will be page upon page of articles and untold hours discussing the team on radio and podcasts but there is one simple fact that rises above all else in terms of the 76ers success this upcoming season:
It all comes down to Joel Embiid.
If the self-anointed “Process’ is healthy and in-shape, a lot of other factors can fall through and the 76ers would still be title contenders.
However, if Embiid is continually battling injuries and keeps frequenting Shake Shack, the Sixers will most likely fall in the second round, just like the previous two seasons.
The bottom line is, if not for Embiid’s chronic knee problems and various stomach ailments during the series, the Sixers would have beaten Toronto and the series would never have even gone seven games.
To his credit, Embiid realizes the mistakes and admits he wants to get in better shape. According to NBC Sports Philadelphia, Brett Brown said he believes Embiid “will enter training camp in the best shape that he’s been since he’s been a Philadelphia 76er”.
No one has ever referred to Embiid as “Mr. Durability’ but he made it clear at the beginning of last year he wanted to play in as many games as possible, and no one apparently spoke up enough to him and explain why that was not a good idea. Having played a total of 31 games in his first three years, he wanted to make up for lost time and shed any ‘soft’ label.
With Embiid’s desire to play combined with the Sixers having really no one to put in his place anyhow, Embiid led the NBA in minutes played for a time.
To have a player with a long history of fragility play more than anyone seems, well, insane, but it continued until his extreme usage resulted in knee soreness by the time the all-star game rolled around. It became so bad he sat out Game 3 of the Nets series. The time he needed to rest up caused his conditioning to take a downturn.
Brown admitted Embiid was shooting more three-pointers in the playoffs because it meant less running he had to do.
Fixing the flaw:
Everyone fights the last battle and the Raptors’ Kawhi Leonard never playing in back-to-back games and sitting out stretches of the regular season for ‘load management’ paid off big time, as he was dominant in the post-season and led Toronto to its first NBA title.
At the postseason press conference, Elton Brand made it clear, according to NBC Sports Philadelphia, Embiid will not be leading the league in minutes played at any point this season.
"“He’s one of the top players in the world so it’s a unique situation where he didn’t play early on in his career so when he had a chance to play and he was healthy he was like ‘I’m out there,'” Brand said. “Now, he sees what other players have done, he spoke to other players, he saw how he felt in the playoffs, which is the most important time, and he doesn’t want to go there [like that] again. So absolutely we’re going to monitor minutes, we’re going to monitor workload and he’s on board for all of that.”"
Brand said they will also keep an eye on Embiid’s diet, although he said it is not as bad as has been publicized.
After letting Embiid basically be allowed to run himself into the ground, Brand sacked the Sixers two top physicians. One of them, Dr. Daniel Medina, landed a spot with the Washington Wizards.
So far, it looks like Embiid has taken the suggestion he get in better shape to heart. In Instagram posts from a vacation spot in July, he looked more muscular and physically fit.
Any appearance by him at a fast food place will be heavily scrutinized during the season. So if you see a 7-foot-2 guy in line at an ice cream truck, tell him to go get a salad.
Verdict: Flaw fixed (fingers crossed).