Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers have high expectations this season. With the addition of Paul George and the continued ascendance of Tyrese Maxey, anything short of a championship should and will be considered a failure.
Embiid is coming off a season where he averaged career-highs in points and assists per game and shot 38% from three, but also missed two-thirds of the season before the Sixers were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the New York Knicks.
The key to postseason success is clearly Embiid's availability, which is a concern since he missed the entirety of his first two seasons in the league and only appeared in 433 of 637 games since then.
That's why the Sixers and Embiid are prepared to take load management to a new extreme, which they told ESPN's Tim Bontempts about recently. Via ESPN:
"If I had to guess," Embiid said, "I would probably never play back-to-backs the rest of my career."
"We're going to be smart about it," Morey said. "Part of being smart about it is having both Paul and Joel probably not play many back to backs, if any."
That's right. Embiid isn't going to play any of those pesky back-to-backs. And George probably won't either. With Tyrese Maxey entering his mid-20's, it's unclear how much longer the franchise will continue to allow him 60 or more games every season.
And if this doesn't work? Well, at this point the only thing left for the Sixers to do is just sit Embiid all year. Just save him for the playoffs because regular season basketball is clearly too risky of an activity.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Joel Embiid, 76ers Taking Load Management to Most Logical Extreme Conclusion.
