Aside from maybe the Mavericks, no other team could lay as strong of a claim as the Philadelphia 76ers when talking about the most deflating campaigns this season. What was widely thought to be a special year for the franchise, after all, quickly hardened into nothing more than blind faith.
Aside from injuries continuing to decimate them on all fronts, the 76ers have been inflicted by the “decline” virus all season long, that is, nearly every single player on the roster found a way to turn in pretty subpar performances of their own. From star players to role players to benchwarmers, fans have been treated to a wild ride, albeit for all the wrong reasons.
Most prominent of all those declines is that which befell Joel Embiid this season. Appearing in just 19 games before getting shut down due to his nagging knee issues, he registered just 23.8 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 4.5 assists per outing while shooting only 44.4 percent from the field in his ninth season — all of which pale in comparison to the stellar numbers he’s posted in the last couple of years.
Joel Embiid is entering an unwanted territory with the 76ers
Embiid’s status moving forward is a humongous question mark at this point. His camp and the team remain far away from a clear-cut resolution to his constant knee ailments, and figuring out a timeline for his return to play seems like a meaningless venture right now to be brutally honest.
That is a pretty dangerous proposition given how much money the franchise has committed to him when it signed him to a maximum extension just last summer. He is guaranteed a monstrous piece of the team’s cap space until the 2027-28 season, and he has a player option he can pick up for the campaign following that. At maximum, he will remain on contract until 2029, when he will be approaching 35.
The figures are astronomical. His salary peaks at around $69 million, eating up well beyond 30 percent of the team’s spending power. That is definitely debilitating in every sense of the word.
For now, Embiid’s contract is already believed by many to be among the worst ones in the NBA. While he is certainly still capable of playing like an All-NBA talent when healthy, that “when”, in practice, is more of an “if”. There is simply no telling if Embiid is equally capable of regaining the kind of physical shape that can accommodate his talent.
If there’s one thing set in stone, it is that the Philadelphia 76ers will have no other choice but to keep faithful to the boat they are sailing with. Joel Embiid cannot realistically be traded at this point, and the only way they can take is to maximize whatever he has left, which is a crazy development for someone who just looked like the best basketball player in the world a year ago.