July 20, 2015
Ever since the public was first alerted that Joel Embiid might have a medical issue over a month ago, most of the information the Sixers disseminated was extremely vague. "Less healing than anticipated" has been the company line. According to the Daily News' Bob Cooney, there is a key piece of information the Sixers either didn't reveal publicly, or weren't specific enough about:
Of course, there is the impending surgery on Joel Embiid's right foot, which should be any day. Sources have confirmed to the Daily News that the navicular bone in his right foot was rebroken.
As far as Embiid's on-court prognosis is concerned, this doesn't change much. We already knew that the bone graft is happening and that the 2015-16 season isn't going to happen for the former third overall pick. Over at CSN Philly, John Gonzalez wrote a nice piece about the Sixers' lack of specificity. Here is how it ended:
But there’s so much more we don’t know. Is the bone in fact rebroken? How did it happen? When? What were the different opinions of the different specialists? What language did they use in their diagnosis? Is Embiid still pain free? What’s the success rate for a second navicular procedure? Has the doctor who will do the procedure performed it before? How many times? What was his/her success rate? And on and on.
There’s a lot to navigate here. The Sixers should better explain how and why they plotted this particular course.
Respectfully, I don't agree with Gonzo that the Sixers need to or even should publicly release every single bit of Joel Embiid's medical information (although it would be pretty funny if an article titled "FAQ: Joel Embiid's Bone Graft" appeared on Sixers.com in the next few days). I'd personally love to know all of that information, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's in their best interest to share, especially when they had such a hard time finding a consensus among medical experts.
As long as they don't purposely mislead, which, after reading Cooney's report, is definitely up for interpretation here.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
