Featured Columnist IVOctober 24, 2024
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Philadelphia 76ers star wing Paul George will reportedly miss at the least the group’s subsequent two video games as he continues to get well from a left knee bone bruise, in line with ESPN’s Shams Charania.
Per that report, George “continues progressing effectively” however will miss the group’s highway journey towards the Toronto Raptors on Friday and the Indiana Pacers on Sunday. The group will reportedly supply an “replace on his availability early subsequent week.”
Each George and celebrity heart Joel Embiid (left knee damage administration) missed the group’s season-opening 124-109 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday evening.
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Joel Embiid and Paul George “have been in many of the motion” at follow at the moment, per Nick Nurse. Stated each gamers did do reside drills and are progressing.
The Embiid scenario has earned the eye of the NBA after he missed the whole lot of the preseason and has already been dominated out by Sunday’s matchup towards the Pacers. Per Charania, the league “has begun an investigation into the Sixers surrounding the participant participation” of Embiid.
He added, nonetheless, that it’s “typical for the NBA to overview a group anytime a celebrity participant misses a nationally televised sport, as per the participant participation coverage.”
The Sixers, in an try to get injury-prone gamers like Embiid and George to the playoffs with a clear invoice of well being, have already acknowledged that the pair most likely will not play each video games in back-to-backs this season.
“We will be sensible about it,” president of basketball operations Daryl Morey informed ESPN’s Tim Bontemps in early October. “A part of being sensible about it’s having each Paul and Joel most likely not play many back-to-backs, if any.”
“If I needed to guess, I might most likely by no means play back-to-backs the remainder of my profession,” Embiid added.
As for George, his signing was the headlining transfer of Philly’s offseason, and one of many largest summer season additions within the NBA, interval. The nine-time All-Star is seemingly the proper match for the star duo of Embiid and Tyrese Maxey, giving the Sixers a two-way wing who’s efficient as a spot-up shooter but in addition greater than able to creating his personal shot.
The Sixers spent the offseason surrounding Embiid with complementary function gamers as effectively, prioritizing taking pictures and a powerful backup for the star heart in Andre Drummond. On paper, that is doubtlessly the perfect roster the group has had within the Embiid period, and on the very least the strongest unit because the group surrounded him with Jimmy Butler, Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris and JJ Redick again within the 2018-19 marketing campaign.
That group took the eventual champion Raptors to seven video games within the Jap Convention Semifinals, famously shedding on Kawhi Leonard’s rim-bouncing three on the buzzer. This group has title-or-bust expectations, although all the pieces rests on the long-term well being of each Embiid and George.
