The Philadelphia 76ers star big man was injured in a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers and that the last thing the Sixers needed.
The only thing that’s worse than losing one superstar player to injury, is losing two. Now it appears that the Philadelphia 76ers are in that worse category. Franchise point guard Ben Simmons was already out with an injury and in a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Sixers lost Joel Embiid to a shoulder injury.
The injury occurred when Embiid collided with big man Ante Zizic. After initially going to the locker he came back out to the bench, only to return there for the rest of the night. After the game, Embiid revealed that he will be getting an MRI and head coach Brett Brown wasn’t sure of the center’s status for the second game of this back-to-back series against the New York Knicks.
Hopefully, the MRI will reveal no significant damage to Embiid’s shoulder and he won’t miss any significant time. That being said, shoulder’s are usually tricky injuries to overcome and the Sixers should be overly cautious and hold him out of the game against the Knicks regardless of his prognosis.
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In case the worse were to happen and Embiid misses multiple games to this injury, the Sixers will have to lean on their supporting cast to pick up the slack. That means that Tobias Harris, Al Horford, and Josh Richardson will have to play at near or at All-Star level until either Embiid and/or Simmons returns. Big men Kyle O’Quinn and Norvel Pelle need to step up as well.
Despite the Sixers taking a loss against a lottery-bound Cavs team, there was one positive that can be taken from this. Shake Milton was phenomenal with both Simmons and Embiid out. He had 20 points, four rebounds, four assists, and one block, while making 8-14 shots and going 4-6 on 3-pointers. If both stars miss a significant amount of time, it may give Milton the opportunity he needs to break out and show his true potential.
The last thing that the Philadelphia 76ers need is for both Embiid and Simmons to miss a significant amount of games. Hopefully, Embiid’s injury won’t be serious, but there’s no way of knowing for sure until he gets the MRI results.