So, let me get this right … we’re starting the NBA season with a load management mentality in 2024?
‘Soft’ is how we want to kick off the season? Soft with a capital T, as Eddie Murphy would say in ‘Life.’
Joel Embiid
Leading off with that notion is Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid, who has already stated he does not intend to play back-to-back games so as to remain healthy for a potential playoff run.
That would equate to the working men and women of this country working three of five days during their work week, yet expecting a full paycheck
I guarantee that the longshoremen in the ports up the coast from Embiid and the Sixers aren’t working Monday, taking Tuesday off, working Wednesday, taking Thursday off, and working Frida then taking the weekend off to reduce injury or strain. I’m sure they’d love that kind of schedule – but, who wouldn’t?
Many of whom might like to go to a game and see Embiid (or Paul George, for that matter) play … but it won’t be tonight, nor Friday night.
The injury-plagued center has yet to play a full slate of regular season games due to his fragility. He didn’t play at all in 2014-15 or 2015-16 and only got in 31 games in his first season on the court. After that, it has been hit and miss with 63, 64, 68, and 66 in the following four seasons (excluding the two COVID-shortened seasons, where he only played 51 games each season).
He only played 39 games in 2023-24, and six post-season tilts.
Broken foot bone, meniscus tears, orbital fracture, among the 49n times the big man has been kept out of NBA action. In fact, Embiid has had so many injuries, it’s surprising that the Portland Trailblazers didn’t draft him.
(See Bill Walton, Sam Bowie, and Greg Oden).
But like those Blazers big men, Embiid has been a modern-day Mr. Glass for all intents and purposes.
Paul George
George is also sitting out the home and season opener to take care of a knee issue, injured during the preseason.
Though he hasn’t been as injury-plagued as his new teammate, it sure feels like it as he got all-too-comfortable in the load management mentality as an L.A. Clipper. Granted, we might give an empathetic pass to a guy who suffered a compound fracture of his tibia when he was with the Indiana Pacers during a Team USA scrimmage.
Not many bounce back from that. Ask where Kevin Ware is (who suffered a similar fate prior to George’s).
But George at least bounced back from said injury to put in 81 games in 2015-16, before moving on to Oklahoma City and Los Angeles. However, he’s not played a full 82-game slate either, especially once he got to L.A., where sitting games out all but became the team’s benchmark.
George’s hyperextended knee is the latest malady to hit the superstar, though the structure of the knee reportedly checked out fine and has been called everything from a bone bruise to a hyperextension, the Sixers are scratching him tonight out of proactive precaution.
Many in the fan base and media have already (albeit sarcastically) written the team off from the post-season, though it is the East and common sense has them in the thick of prognostication, this isn’t putting the best foot forward; in this case, best fur feet forward.
Kawhi Leonard
And a lot of this goes back to George’s last five years in L.A., being paired with perennial load management poster child, Kawhi Leonard.
For all his talent, skill, and ability – never mind the championship he won with the Toronto Raptors in 2019 – Leonard has never played a full NBA season, either. In fact, he has played just 696 regular seasons since arriving in the league in 2011.
To that point, he is out indefinitely to start the 2024-25 regular season, which tips tonight against the Phoenix Suns.
Leonard wanted to build his legacy in his hometown and coaxed another L.A. guy (George) to the Clippers to establish a dynasty, but you can’t count on that any more than you can count on his knee (or George’s, for that matter).
For a while, I wondered if it was the shoes. But I’ve had the Kawhi IV’s for a good while now and I’ll be damned if I have to go to the office every single day. Consecutive days. As scheduled. Imagine that.
(Meanwhile, I went back to work 11 days after having part of my right foot amputated this year).
There are those that suggest that Leonard should retire, given the history of his knee and the load management (abuse?) that has come with it. While I’m not sure anyone reserves the right to such a judgment of another person’s career, I will argue that it seems he’s been semi-retired for quite some time now.
Imagine if he’d played the number of games he’s supposed to play – he could have been in the conversation with people like Magic Johnson, Gary Payton, Michael Jordan, Grant Hill, or LeBron James.
But we’ll never know.
Sure, he has a ring, which is one more than Embiid and George have, but with the track record – past and present – and his comfortability with load management, there will always be the ‘what if?’ with regard to Kawhi Leonard, like there was with Hill … and he was great despite the injuries. (Has a much more socially acceptable laugh, too).
That goes for Embiid, George, and many other careers that injuries have waylaid or negated altogether. It’s sad to say, but we may never see these guys get a ring. I’m sure Embiid got the MVP nod more out of DEI sympathy rather than Nikola Jokic taking four straight. It wasn’t for staying injury-free.
Maybe people like Leonard, Embiid, and George should take note and enjoy the luxury of playing a playground and driveway game for millions of dollars while those who support them are breaking their backs five, six, or even seven days a week with sore backs, necks, feet and knees trying to put food on the table.
I could go on, but I’ve got to get back to work.
Working five days out of five this week … not two of five.
By the way, the Sixers are playing this guy tonight … who went to and won the 2021 NBA Championship after his knee did this against the Atlanta Hawks.
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Tracy Graven is the Senior NBA Analyst for BackSportsPage.com.
He has written the NBA, appeared as a guest on NBA Radio, and the last 24+ years for HoopsWorld, Swish Magazine, HoopsHype, the Coach Scott Fields Show, NBARadioShow.com, and also will be tackling the NFL, NCAA for BackSportsPage.
He’s spent 25 years in locker rooms in Orlando, Boise (CBA, G League), San Antonio, Phoenix, Denver, Oklahoma City, and Atlanta.
A corporate trainer by day, he currently resides in the heart of SEC Country near Knoxville, Tennessee – home of the 2024 Men’s Baseball World Series Champion Tennessee Volunteers.
Reach him on Twitter at @RealTMoneyMedia
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