Joel Embiid’s Plantar Fasciitis Gives New Context To Sixers’ Early-Season Struggles

The Philadelphia 76ers fell to 0-3 with their 114-105 loss to the rebuilding San Antonio Spurs on Saturday night, which would be cause for concern in and of itself. The hits kept on coming after the game, though, when star center Joel Embiid explained why he’s gotten off to a slow start by his standards.

Head coach Doc Rivers revealed to reporters Friday that Embiid had “a little plantar fasciitis” during the offseason, which “took him off his conditioning program.” After Saturday’s loss, Embiid explained just how much that affected his offseason preparation.

“Still trying to work my way back,” he said. “But coming into training camp, I hadn’t done anything in like two months, so it really slowed me down. Still trying to work my way back, and hopefully everything goes back to normal.”

Embiid badly struggled in Thursday’s loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, finishing with 15 points on 6-of-21 shooting, 12 rebounds, three assists and four turnovers. While Bucks center Brook Lopez made life difficult on him defensively, Embiid also seemed more sluggish on both ends of the floor than he’s been in recent years.

Embiid bounced back in Saturday’s loss against the Spurs with a season-high 40 points on 14-of-25 shooting and 13 rebounds. However, he still appeared to lack his typical level of explosiveness and lateral mobility, which affected him on both ends of the floor.

Embiid told reporters after the game that he began feeling effects from his plantar fasciitis when the Sixers were training in Los Angeles this summer.

“Out of nowhere, I just thought it was something, whatever, soreness,” he said. “Over time, it just kept getting worse and worse. And then it got to the point where I couldn’t walk and it was really painful.”

Embiid did say that he’s “fine” now. However, it’s fair to wonder how honest he’s being considering how unforthcoming he was about the initial injury. Rivers also told reporters Friday that he was planning to tweak his rotation as Embiid works his way back into game shape.

“The No. 1 thing with Joel is just trying to change his minute allocation early,” he said. “We don’t like that, because we wanted to go with a different type of rotation. But right now, we have to probably do it differently, just to keep him so he’s running at a higher speed.”

In theory, the Sixers have never been better equipped to survive a slow start from Embiid. Between Montrezl Harrell, Paul Reed and P.J. Tucker, they have three options to throw out at center beyond Embiid, all of whom provide different looks on both ends of the floor.

Harrell is a rim-running rebound-gobbler who struggles in pick-and-roll coverage. Reed is far more switchable defensively than Harrell, but he’s more inconsistent on offense, too. When Tucker plays as a small-ball 5, three-point-shooting ability can force traditional big men to guard him out to the perimeter and create driving lanes for his teammates.

Against the Spurs, Tucker played only 29 minutes, Harrell played nine minutes and Reed didn’t see the floor whatsoever. Reed likewise didn’t play in the Sixers’ season-opening loss to the Boston Celtics on Tuesday. The Sixers only went to the Tucker-at-the-5 look against Milwaukee because Rivers said he didn’t like how Reed or Harrell played in the first half of that game.

The Sixers may be using these early-season games to work Embiid back into game shape, results be damned. But if he isn’t physically right, they should also be tinkering more with their backup options than they have been thus far. Embiid has been their alpha and omega for years, but they need to see whether their newfound depth can keep them afloat without him at times.

James Harden also had two masterful games against Boston and Milwaukee before coming back down to earth against the Spurs. The point of acquiring a second star like him is not to have to lean so heavily on Embiid, particularly on nights where he’s struggling like he did against the Bucks.

On Friday, Rivers didn’t express much long-term concern about Embiid despite his early-season malaise.

“I’m the least worried about Joel, probably,” he said. “He didn’t play well [against the Bucks]. And that’s OK. That’s going to happen. He’s got to get his rhythm, his conditioning. All that has to get better, but it will. So I’m not concerned with that.

“The only thing I told our guys is, ‘OK, that happens. You’ve still got to win the game.’ And I said, ‘James, Joel, if you go 0-for-20, what else can you do to help us win?’ We can’t ever let the misses affect how we play through the other part of our games.”

Even when Embiid doesn’t have it going offensively—like in Thursday’s loss to the Bucks—the Sixers need him to be a tone-setter defensively. When Harden is bricking shots like he did against the Spurs, he still needs to create easy shot attempts for his teammates. Allowing their own offensive struggles to affect the rest of their respective games is a recipe for a disheartening loss.

The Sixers still have 79 regular-season games to get back on track, but Embiid’s ongoing recovery from plantar fasciitis now looms large over their long-term outlook. If he doesn’t get right at some point, the Sixers will effectively be drawing dead in terms of their championship chances.

Embiid expressed confidence after Saturday’s loss that the Sixers will manage to right the ship at some point.

“There’s no need for excuses,” he said. “We just got to play better, we just got to be better. Slow start, nothing to be concerned about. Fairly new team. We’re gonna find a way.”

Their next chance will come Monday against the rebuilding Indiana Pacers. After that, a tough two-game road trip against the Toronto Raptors could extend their early-season skid into a five-alarm fire.