Joel Embiid injury and money stats shine light on disappointing 76ers' era
The Joel Embiid era in Philadelphia 76ers history is destined to remain a flop.
The Philadelphia 76ers have made the playoffs in each of the last seven seasons, winning more than 60 percent of their regular season games five times. Things aren’t going quite as well this season, with a 18-27 record entering Thursday.
Center Joel Embiid has played just 13 games this season due to ongoing management of a knee injury, and he has not suited up since Jan. 4. When he’ll suit up again is unclear, but those of us who got him in a fantasy basketball draft (blame auto-draft in my case) but have been able to trade him can be glad to not have to deal with that headache anymore.
Tuesday night against the Los Angeles Lakers, Embiid missed the 400th game if his career. That’s obviously a lot over roughly 10 and-a-half seasons, compared to 446 games he has been active for.
Last September, the 76ers and Embiid agreed to a three-year, $192.9 million contract extension. That puts him under contract through the 2028-29 season, during which he’ll turn 34 years old.
In light of Embiid missing his 400th career game, Michael Ginnitti of Spotrac captured the situation.
Embiid’s massive contract extension doesn’t kick in until the 2026-2027 season, with the third year a player option he’s sure to pick up ($69.1 million).
Embiid has been available for a shade under 53 percent of possible regular season games since the 76ers took him third overall in the 2014 draft out of Kansas. Two missed seasons to start his career skews that some, but take those out seasons and he has still been available less than two-thirds of the time. Since his MVP season in 2022-23, he has played 52 of a possible 137 regular season games entering Jan. 30 (37.9 percent).
When Embiid’s career is over, he will be a quintessential case of “what could have been?” Sometimes a person’s body simply betrays them, but Embiid often invites questions about if he could play or not and those questions have resurfaced to some extent.
The 76ers are stuck in a cycle where their season-to-season ceiling is low and the floor can possibly get very low depending on how healthy and available Embiid is. It’s worth questioning if they should have given him the max extension they did, but it’s also pretty clear they didn’t have much choice. If they didn’t, then it’s possible Embiid would’ve become a bigger headache beyond the perpetual state of “day to day” he has been in throughout his career.
