The dream goes like this: Joel Embiid stays upright for two years, the Philadelphia 76ers’ stacked roster delivers a championship, and the 2023 MVP walks away with a resume — eight All-Stars, six All-NBA selections, a ring, maybe a Finals MVP — that forces the league to reconsider where he sits among the all-time greats.
The medical file says otherwise.
Embiid underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee in April 2025, capping a season in which he appeared in 19 games. The Sixers finished 24-58, dead in the water at 13th in the Eastern Conference, a year after handing Paul George a four-year, $211.6 million contract and talking themselves into contention. Embiid has played more than 65 regular-season games exactly twice in his career. Over the last two seasons combined, he has logged 58 appearances.
The organization offered its most encouraging sign in months when it released footage of Embiid practicing without a knee brace ahead of training camp. For a franchise that has watched its centerpiece wake up with soreness after shootaround — as Nick Nurse described during a playoff loss to the Knicks, when an ankle sprain and hip soreness scratched Embiid from a game he’d been listed as probable for — a brace-free workout counts as progress. The Sixers will monitor his minutes, particularly in back-to-backs. Sixty-plus games would qualify as a win.
Whether that’s enough to matter is the question nobody in Philadelphia wants to ask out loud.
The roster around Embiid is genuinely talented. Tyrese Maxey has established himself as an elite guard. Jared McCain showed flashes before his own injury shelved him. The No. 3 overall pick, V.J. Edgecombe, is already averaging 15.2 points and 5.6 rebounds through the early portion of the season. George, when healthy, is a two-way wing who changes matchups. Andre Drummond is grabbing 9.4 rebounds a night off the bench. The Sixers are 14-11 and scoring 116.8 points per game — middle of the pack, but functional.
The oddsmakers see the picture differently. BetMGM lists Philadelphia at +6600 to win the 2025-26 championship, 13th in the NBA. To simply make the playoffs, the Sixers sit at -150, 16th among teams with posted odds. That’s not the line of a dream team. That’s the line of a franchise whose ceiling is entirely dependent on one man’s left knee.
Embiid’s production when he plays remains elite. Even in his diminished 2024-25 campaign, he averaged 23.8 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 4.5 assists. In the postseason, playing through pain that Nurse described as obvious, he averaged 25.2 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 5.8 assists. He returned from an appendectomy faster than any reasonable timeline should have allowed, took a shot to the abdomen in a 39-point playoff loss, and still wanted the floor the next game. Nobody has ever questioned his appetite for competition.
The issue was never want. It was cartilage.
The legacy hypothetical — top 25 all time, top seven big men — only works if the body cooperates for two consecutive years, something it has managed roughly once in a decade. The Sixers have the pieces. The knee has the veto.
Sources:
- Yahoo Sports / Sporting News — 76ers offer encouraging Joel Embiid injury update
- NBC Sports Philadelphia — Embiid ruled out for Game 2 vs. Knicks
- Sixers Wire / USA TODAY — 76ers 2026 NBA playoffs & championship odds