Mar 25, 2026; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid (21) looks on during the third quarter against the Chicago Bulls at Xfinity Mobile Arena. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
When you are without the services of Joel Embiid, there are so many factors that come into play if you're the head coach, whether it be Brett Brown, Doc Rivers or Nick Nurse.
The first order of business when the star center is sidelined is replacing him somehow, which is a near impossible task given what he brings on the basketball court.
Then extracting the most out of every other player becomes the priority. When the hope then comes that Embiid would be ready to participate in a postseason, the thought is to find the best rotation surrounding the 7-2, 280-pounder, figuring out what combinations would be the most productive.
And then, if Embiid isn't available for the postseason, which is the most likely scenario after he had surgery to remove his appendix Thursday in Houston, it's kind of all for naught.
Nurse has played this game all season long when it comes to his big man, from not knowing his status on a daily basis to having to compete without him for long periods of time. And each time it was an adventure in how to survive.
He shifted between starting Andre Drummond and Adem Bona at the center spot. He toyed with the power forward position, tinkered at small forward. Starting lineups changed as often as the Sixers uniforms do game-to-game. But you got the feeling that it was all being done with the thought of Embiid being present when the playoffs, or Play-In Tournament, rolled around.
Of course, injury and postseason go hand-in-hand with Embiid, but usually he pushes through it. And it is amazing how many times he has had to. The list is just staggering.
If you’re in the middle of a thunderstorm, don’t stand next to Joel Embiid bruh
In 2018, Embiid missed the later part of the season with an orbital fracture. The team won their final 16 games of the season and Embiid returned for the playoffs. The Sixers swept the Heat in the first round before falling to the Celtics in five in the second round.
Knee tendinitis and an upper respiratory infection ailed Embiid in 2019, but he averaged 24.8 points and 13.5 rebounds in a first round win over Brooklyn before losing in seven to the eventual champion Toronto Raptors.
He hurt his meniscus in a 2021 first round series against the Washington Wizards after landing awkwardly, but helped the team advance in four games. He averaged 30.4 points and 12.7 rebounds the next series against Atlanta, which the Sixers lost in seven.
A first round series against Toronto in 2022 produced an orbital fracture and concussion during a lopsided win, in a series the Sixers won in six. It forced Embiid to miss the first two games against Miami in the next series, which the Sixers lost in six games. He averaged 20 and 10 in the four games he played.
In 2023, Embiid suffered a knee sprain in a three-game sweep of the Brooklyn Nets in the first round, which caused him to miss Game One in the next round against the Celtics. The Sixers lost that series in seven, with Embiid averaging 25.5 and 8.3.
The following season, he played with a torn meniscus and a battle of Bell's Palsy to the left side of his face against the New York Knicks and averaged 33 and 10.8 in a series they lost in six games.
And now comes this. Embiid had been sidelined since the end of February with a strained right oblique. Then there was an illness recently and now the emergency surgery. Whether they are all related remains to be seen, but recovering from this type of surgery would normally be at least a month or more, so seeing Embiid in uniform again this year seems unlikely.
Joel Embiid’s 2025-26 season is over. Here are his final stats (38 games):
- 26.9 PTS
- 7.7 REB
- 3.9 AST
- 1.2 BLK
- 48.9% FG
- 33.3% 3PT
- 85.4% FT
- 60.5% TS
- 14 games with 30+ points, 1 game with 40+ points
Another short-lived campaign for the Sixers superstar. pic.twitter.com/CdW8kiKoAv
So now Nurse and his team must push on. How that will look remains to be seen. And while the coach has been in this position for much of the season, this is different. While expecting for Embiid to be healthy for the postseason is an exercise in futility, it did appear over the last couple of weeks that he would be back for the playoffs. Nurse had tightened his rotation, trying to figure out what would work best with Embiid. Now, it's surviving without him.
The Sixers, at 43-37, are almost surely headed to the Play-In Tournament. In the tournament, the winner of the seventh and eighth seeded game is automatically the seventh seed. The loser of that game plays against the winner of the ninth and tenth seeded game. The winner of that is the eighth seed entering the playoffs.
That is what the Sixers season has come down to. And unlike past seasons when the wonder was how healthy might Embiid be entering the postseason, this time it's known that he won't be available. And while the team showed some real grit Thursday in a 113-102 loss to the Houston Rockets, by trimming a 26-point deficit to just five late in the game, there just doesn't seem to be enough firepower or cohesiveness to carry this team to many more games beyond next week.
It is a scenario that has become all too familiar to the organization when it comes to their former MVP.
