Getty Image / Mitchell Leff
The Philadelphia 76ers are already three games into the season, and Joel Embiid has missed all three. The oft-injured center is still rehabbing a knee injury suffered last season.
With the NBA having rules regarding the participation of star players and how teams handle injuries, they launched an investigation into the 76ers last week. The results of that investigation are back, and the 76ers have been disciplined.
When he’s healthy, Joel Embiid is arguably the best player in the league. The center won the 2022-2034 NBA MVP award and has come close a few other times while battling it out with Nuggets center Nikola Jokic. Last year, he only played 39 regular season games, but averaged a career-high 34.7 points in just 34 minutes per game to go along with impressive rebounding and assist numbers.
Joel Embiid was clearly hobbled in the Knicks-Sixers series that the team lost in six games, and the 76ers know their only chance of winning a title is for a perfectly healthy Embiid in the playoffs. With the team adding Paul George and a few other good bench pieces in the offseason, they know that the title window is now.
The Sixers were pretty cryptic about Joel Embiid’s health status leading up to the first few games of the season. NBA teams are required to be pretty forthcoming about injuries. And, Embiid was also being investigated by the NBA, as star players are required to play in certain games unless they’re hurt.
According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, NBA has fined the Sixers $100,000, while Embiid has been cleared of wrongdoing, as he is indeed still recovering from the knee injury.
That’s a drop in the bucket for an NBA franchise, obviously. It seems like there wasn’t all that much to this investigation.
The 76ers have started the season 1-2. Let’s hope Joel Embiid can return to the floor quickly.