While the Philadelphia 76ers continue to move forward and pick up the pieces after falling in Game 7 at home to the Atlanta Hawks, there are some questions that need to be answered.
One of them is the health of superstar big man Joel Embiid. The MVP finalist suffered a small lateral meniscus tear in his right knee in Round 1 against the Washington Wizards and that seemed to hamper him in Round 2.
While Embiid still averaged 30.4 points and 12.7 rebounds against the Hawks, he shot only 46.9% from the floor. He also shot 0-for-12 in the second half of their Game 4 loss on the road and afterward, he admitted that his knee was bothering him a bit.
Now that the season is over, there are questions about whether the injury will require surgery over the offseason.
“I think we’re all super impressed with what Joel was able to do,” said Daryl Morey on Tuesday. “He’s sort of the heart and soul of the team and what he did every night for us will forever be appreciated. In terms of what’s next, I know they’re going through a full assessment of him right now. The medical staff along with Joel and his very good team of advisors and the next step will be determined from that.”
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Embiid said all season that he had hired a nutritionist to get his body right as well as a team of other medical professionals to make sure that he is ready to go for the big moments. Unfortunately for him, he still got injured, but this is more of a freak accident rather than anything that had to do with poor conditioning or anything.
“He clearly wasn’t moving as normal Jo did, there’s no doubt about that,” said coach Doc Rivers. “I think everyone saw that. I don’t think it was a conditioning thing. I think it was more a health thing.”
In terms of the next steps of the recovery process, Morey stated that Embiid is still weighing his options and they will take the necessary steps to keep moving in the right direction.
“Joel is one of the smartest players I’ve ever worked with,” said Morey. “He likes to take lots of input from pretty much every top doctor in the country and taking all that input, the best decision will be made at that point.”
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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