PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid has been in the midst of a major resurgence following one of the more frustrating seasons of his career. After scoring 40 points with 11 rebounds in Saturday’s win over the New Orleans Pelicans, the big fella is now averaging 26.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 3.9 assists on the season.
As Embiid was limping through the 19 games he played in the 2024-25 season, and then having another left knee surgery in April, very few thought he would be playing this well. It looks like he has new life and is on his way back to being one of the better players in the league again.
“Honestly, it’s surprising,” Embiid said after the win over the Pelicans. “I mean, coming into this year, I think it was gonna be more of a tryout year. To me, this year has already been successful, because I feel like coming into the year, it was about figuring out, OK, what’s the schedule? How are we going to do this moving forward? And trying to figure out how the knee is going to respond every single day.”
The medical staff comes up with that schedule for coach Nick Nurse and his staff to follow in order to have Embiid ready to go on a nightly basis. While Dr. Jonathan Glashow, the one who performed Embiid’s surgery in April, deserves credit for his work, the schedule put together by the medical staff has been extremely helpful.
“Obviously, we saw this year after every game, at least two days off,” Embiid continued. “Now we’ve been doing it every other day. Everything is going well. So, coming into the year, it was all about figuring out, what are we going to do every single day? So to me, this year’s already a success, but that doesn’t change my mentality as far as wanting to get better every single day.”
Of course, Embiid wants to continue to get better. The focus is there for him to take the necessary steps forward every day to be that superstar big man again for this group.
“Keep pushing and seeing,” he continued. “Like I said, it was supposed to be basically a tryout for next year and moving forward, how are we gonna do this? So I will say, Yeah, I think we figured it out kind of like the schedule, and what we have to do every single day to make sure that I’m prepared enough and I feel good.”
The schedule that the medical staff has been a real game-changer for Embiid and the Sixers, and it’s why he wants to single out an important person in all of this: VP of athletic care Simon Rice.
“His name hasn’t been mentioned, but I think guys like, Simon Rice,” Embiid finished. “When it comes to everything, I think I would say, probably everybody gave up on me. He’s the one guy that just kept trying to figure out, what can we do? How can I? How can he help me? So, yeah, like I said, I’m really thankful because he was one person. He’s in the background. No one is ever going to mention his name and talk about him, but he’s the guy.”
Embiid and the Sixers will look to continue taking these big steps forward as they begin an important 5-game West Coast swing on Monday against the Los Angeles Clippers.
