An Honest Analysis of Joel Embiid's Future

MOC gets real for a minute about something none of us really want to get real about.

One of the great things about basketball is the fact that it can often be remarkably easy to tell when a player is truly special. In baseball, even a benchwarmer can hit a 430-foot homerun. In football, even a third-string wide receiver can make a leaping one-handed catch. But in basketball, there are certain plays that you can watch and immediately know, “Yeah, this guy’s special.”

I’ll never forget the feeling of watching Embiid’s NBA debut and having that exact realization when watching him block Russell Westbrook and then hit a turnaround mid-range fade to start the game. It was obvious, from that 15-second stretch alone, that he was going to be great. This has always been the case for Joel. He is, above all else, unbelievably, ridiculously talented.

Even now, as we watch Embiid in the most diminished state he’s ever played in, it’s still so obvious that he’s an otherworldly talent. Seeing him score 35 points on an array of mid-range jumpers against Memphis last week – while looking about 70-75 percent healthy – was just another reminder of who this guy truly is.

And when you have someone like that on your team, you naturally force yourself to believe to some extent that things are going to work out for that player, because the alternative is too painful to stomach. You believe that somehow, some way, the basketball gods will smile upon him at some point, because he’s so talented that it would be a sin for them not to. 

But now, for the first time, I’m ready to consider the possibility that there is no longer any hope of that happening. The chain of events of the past year make it, objectively, hard to have full confidence that Embiid will be able to play elite basketball for a long, sustained stretch ever again. It really might be just about over for him. 

It has been 10 months since we saw him healthy. Nine months ago, he had meniscus surgery on his knee which typically has a six-week recovery timeline. Instead, he missed 10 weeks, and was clearly still injured upon returning. He was moving poorly in the playoffs despite putting up incredible numbers, and looked equally hobbled during the Olympics three months later; the lateral quickness and overall agility that we’re accustomed to seeing from Embiid just hasn’t been there. 

He then had to sit out the start of this season, supposedly due to swelling in the knee, and after returning for four games and looking very much not like himself, he is now forced to sit out again due to swelling.

This is the same knee that Embiid suffered a torn meniscus in 2017, had pain and swelling in that knee for the entire second half of the 2019 season, then suffered a bone bruise in 2021, and finally, the second meniscus tear in 2024. 

As Dr. Brett Sutterer explained to me on Twitter the other night, the fact that Embiid has had so many injuries and multiple meniscus tears on the same knee means that his cartilage may have worn down to the point where pain and swelling is inevitable any time Embiid puts miles on his knee. In other words: this is a chronic thing with no mechanism to fix it, and it very well might not get any better.

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Some folks may be wondering why the Sixers wouldn’t simply rest Embiid until he’s 100 percent healthy, but Dr. Sutterer doesn’t seem to think it’s that simple; it may not be the type of injury that is solved by some period of rest. The injury – or at least, the problem in his knee that is causing the injury – is not going to go away by not playing.

So, it’s very possible that the rest of this season looks similar to how it has so far. He’ll play for a week, some pain and swelling will emerge, and he’ll shut it down for a week. Maybe he’ll play for a month, look pretty good, then encounter some swelling and have to miss a month. I suppose the hope is that he’s able to play just enough games to where the Sixers have a decent record, and then he’s just going to have to gut it out and play through the swelling when the playoffs arrive. Even then, the question of how much long term damage Embiid is putting on his knee by playing through swelling becomes pretty worrisome. 

But obviously, I’m totally spitballing here. Things could miraculously, inexplicably get better, or they could completely fall apart and Embiid could find himself unable to play basketball for the foreseeable future. Both of those, and everything in between, are on the table.

And for the sake of mentally preparing for all this, I think it’s at least worth discussing the best and worst possible outcomes here – what I would refer to as the Kawhi Leonard path versus the Andrew Bynum path. Let’s break it down in more depth.

Some of you might be wondering how the Kawhi Leonard path could be considered a positive outcome, and the answer is that A) it’s important to remember that many thought his career was virtually over two years ago, and B) I’m just trying to be realistic here.

Remember: after tearing his ACL in June of 2021, Leonard missed the entire 2021-22 season. After taking 16 months to recover, Leonard started the 2022-23 season healthy, but was forced to sit out just a few games into the season due to what the team called knee stiffness. After missing ten games, he returned for three games on a heavy minutes restriction and looked terrible, and the team sat him down for another two weeks. 

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The parallels to Embiid’s current state are obvious – Clippers fans at the time, just like we are doing now with Embiid, were wondering whether Leonard’s knee was just toast. But the reason that Leonard’s case gives us hope is that after sitting another two weeks, he miraculously began looking like himself again, and despite remaining on a load management plan, was able to close out the season quite well. He played 52 total games and put up numbers similar to his career averages. 

Of course, Leonard would go on to tear his meniscus in Game 2 of the first round that year, ending his season. Still, he was ready for training camp the following season, and wound up playing 68 games last year before he began experiencing pain and swelling in his knee, effectively ending his season. Leonard, of course, is now on month eight of missing time due to pain and swelling in his knee, and there is no timetable for his return.

Again, just trying to be realistic here – Leonard being mostly healthy for a year and a half, after looking to be completely and totally done in December of 2022, is a positive example for Embiid. If Embiid’s next 1.5 seasons resemble the 1.5 seasons Leonard had during that time, that would be a huge win for him and the Sixers. 

And as Dr. Nirav Pandya pointed out to me on Twitter, it is indeed medically possible – he says that sometimes, the knee can adapt to having a change in meniscus quantity over time. Who knows, maybe Embiid’s knee will stabilize over time and this entire conversation will seem foolish.

But I think it’s at least worth considering the possibility that this is it for Joel. Sometimes, your knee degenerates and then just keeps on degenerating. For every semi-recovery like Kawhi’s, there are five guys who don’t recover. Ask Brandon Roy, Penny Hardaway, Andrew Bynum, Tracy McGrady, Ralph Sampson, etc. etc. All of those guys went from the peak of their powers to a shell of themselves due to knee problems practically overnight – Bynum most notably, of course. Sometimes when it goes, it goes fast. Some of these types of guys were able to carve out a respectable chapter as role players after their injuries, but that’s not always the case.

If that does happen, we’ll have to have long conversations about what that means for the Sixers’ future. They owe Embiid guaranteed max money through 2029. If he is truly cooked, that will outright cripple the franchise; they don’t stand a freaking chance of building a championship team around Jared McCain and Tyrese Maxey if there is $67 million in dead money sitting on their books in 2029. He can’t be traded this season, and if he proves that he can’t be a functional NBA player this season, I can’t imagine the Sixers would even be able to find a trade partner next year or the year after. It would be an unfathomably tragic ending for Embiid, the franchise, and the fans, who have bonded with and invested so much in Embiid. If the next five years are spent helplessly trying and failing to get him back on the court, it will be an immense emotional drain for everyone involved. 

But let’s not dive too deep into that now – the Kawhi path is still on the table. And maybe there will be some third path that we’re not thinking of; maybe Embiid will be in and out of the lineup for the next two years, appear to be mostly cooked, and then find some experimental treatment that fixes him back up in 2027. Lonzo Ball might serve as some inspiration there: After two years of being unable to play basketball due to cartilage issues in his knee, Ball returned to the floor at the start of this season thanks to a rare meniscus transplant surgery. But how good of a player Ball can be at this point remains to be seen. 

Who knows? All we can say for now is that just about everything is on the table — except maybe for our idyllic fantasy that Embiid will fully normalize, achieve full health for the foreseeable future, and that his next four years will be even better than his last four years. There is still hope that the basketball gods will smile upon Embiid, but for now, it’s becoming increasingly hard to believe in them. 

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Mike O’Connor is the best O’Connor in basketball writing. Previously of The Athletic, you can find Mike on Twitter @MOConnor_NBA. Mike’s writing is brought to you by Body Bio, supplements based on science, focusing on your gut and brain health.