Joel Embiid is now in the midst of a spell on the sidelines after suffering a sinus fracture in the Philadelphia 76ers’ 121-107 loss to the Indiana Pacers on Friday. This is just the latest in a long list of injuries that Embiid has suffered in his 11 seasons in the NBA and his injury history is a really sad read.
– Fractured foot (2014-2016)
– Meniscus tear (2016-17)
– Orbital fracture (2017-18)
– Knee tendinitis (2018-19)
– Dislocated finger (2019-20)
– Partially torn meniscus (2020-21)
– Orbital fracture (2021-22)
– Sprained LCL (2022-23)
– Torn meniscus (2023-24)
– Bells Palsy (2023-24)
– Sinus fracture (2024-25)
While Embiid’s problematic knees have caused him to miss a lot of time he has also been quite unlucky, especially when it comes to those facial injuries. They were through no fault of his own, but down to an opponent just accidentally striking him in the case. It was Pascal Siakam who struck him in 2022 and it was his own teammate Markelle Fultz in 2018.
In 2024, it was Bennedict Mathurin’s turn to do it to Embiid in the game against the Pacers. The 76ers star had already missed 17 games this season due to injury and suspension heading into that contest, and we now wait to see how much bigger that number is going to get.
Embiid has had a phenomenal career, winning an MVP and two scoring titles. He has also made seven All-Star teams, five All-NBA teams, and three All-Defensive teams but you wonder how much more he could have achieved had the injury bug stayed away.
The 76ers have played 824 regular season games since they drafted Embiid with the third pick in the 2014 NBA Draft. Can you guess how many of them their star big man has featured in? Well, just 439, which amounts to 53.2%. That’s just mind-boggling.
From 2014-15 to 2023-24, Embiid missed an average of 36.8 games per game. Now all these numbers are skewed a little bit by his missing the first two seasons of his career but even if you exclude those years, it’s still not a pretty read.
Embiid has played just 66.5% of the 76ers’ games from the 2016-17 season (439/660), which means he has missed more than a quarter. It’s going to happen in this 2024-25 campaign as well and as much as it pains me to say this, things aren’t going to get better moving forward.
Big men who have dealt with knee injuries earlier in their careers start breaking down with greater regularity as they age. Embiid is 30 years old now and you do wonder how much longer he’ll be able to produce at a high level. He has averaged just 20.3 points, 7.7 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 0.3 steals, and 1.0 blocks per game for the 76ers in this campaign but I do expect his numbers to look much better come the end.
Embiid might not be back on the court for a while, though, so the 7-16 76ers have their work cut out for them. They take on the Charlotte Hornets next at Spectrum Center on Monday at 7 PM ET and will be hoping for a return to winning ways there.
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