Tuesday night could see Joel Embiid return to the court for the Philadelphia 76ers. Embiid is extremely close to making a comeback, according to reports from Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN and Shams Charania of The Athletic.
The 76ers’ Tuesday night matchup against the Thunder might see Embiid make his comeback, if nothing goes wrong. If not, it will happen this next week, just in time for Embiid to get ready for the 76ers’ postseason run, and before the regular season ends.
Nick Nurse, the coach of the 76ers, stated last week that he anticipated Embiid’s comeback during the regular season.
Joel Embiid has been a big miss
Since surgery on February 1st, Embiid has been out due to a torn left lateral meniscus. Prior to that, he was averaging 35.3 points and 11.5 rebounds a game, which was close to MVP-level performance. Embiid was on track to become the only player in NBA history to average more than one point per minute played, alongside Wilt Chamberlain.
Embiid missed so many games that he was eliminated from consideration for MVP even in the absence of the NBA’s new 65-game regulation, but he missed so many that he is now ineligible for postseason honors. Additionally, he has missed too many games to be eligible for awards like the league scoring title, which Luka Doncic now holds with 34 points per game.
Can Sixers make a comeback with Embiid ?
Since Embiid left, Philadelphia has gone 11–18, falling back to the eighth seed in the East. It is quite likely that the team will need to win the Play-In Tournament in order to advance to the postseason. The 76ers trail the Heat by 1.5 games (two games in the loss column) and the Pacers by 2 games (with Indiana having the tiebreaker) for the No. 7 spot. With seven games remaining, that is too much ground to make up on Indianapolis.
Philadelphia will win the play-in round, but Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid, and the rest of the 76ers should not be seen in the first round by Boston or Milwaukee.