The Philadelphia Sixers will have a Joel Embiid dilemma as long as he's still on the team. That's what happens when your best player is injury-prone. Long story short — the decision to extend Embiid last year continues to make no sense.
The goal is to get Embiid back to a place where he can be the top player in the league on a nightly basis (with off nights), but fans worry that may never happen again. He played 19 games last season, missing significant time due to a knee injury that required surgery in April.
The question that everyone is wondering is if Embiid will be ready for training camp. Will he play in the season opener? The more time that passes, the less likely that seems. There have been no significant updates on his progress, and it's already August.
It's not that Philadelphia regrets having Embiid on its roster, but rather that the organization extended him last offseason when his status was uncertain. The Sixers got too far ahead of themselves after signing Paul George to a maximum contract in free agency (another deal that aged poorly), locking Embiid down through the 2028-29 season (a $67.2 million player option).
How did the start of last season go? Embiid and George both missed the season opener, an outcome that could happen again in October.
Lack of Embiid update makes extension look even worse
Even if the Sixers wanted to trade Embiid, they couldn't. No team will want to take on that kind of contract for a player who has nagging knee issues.
Philadelphia's best-case scenario is Embiid staying relatively healthy this season and leading the team to a deep playoff run, but even that seems like a faraway dream. It's more possible that it will happen this season than last season, but that's only because the East is more wide open.
The Sixers want to take advantage of that, but will they be able to?
A lot of it is out of their control because it relies heavily on Embiid's status. They can't control whether he's able to play or not, outside of providing him with what he needs to rehab and recover, but they could've controlled the extension last year. It wasn't a good decision at the time, and it's aged even worse than expected.
Maybe Philly fans will get a positive Embiid update soon, but at this point, they know not to expect one.