Why a healthy Joel Embiid has been essential for the new-look Sixers during the preseason: ‘Everybody’s pushing each other’

Joel Embiid has seen various iterations of the 76ers come and go during his 11-year career with some eras, like those that included Jimmy Butler and James Harden, never lasting more than a season.

At the same time, he watched teams like the Denver Nuggets, Oklahoma City Thunder, and New York Knicks win championships after multiple seasons of keeping the same core players together. Through some initial playoff failure, each of those teams reached the top of the sport, while the Sixers have churned their roster in hopes of doing the same.

“They went through a couple years, figuring it out, then finally got there and were able to do it,” Embiid said at media day in September.

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So what gives Embiid hope that this latest version of the Sixers won’t succumb to that same fate?

“It’s hard to win. I haven’t done it. Feel like I know what it takes,” Embiid said. “But it is hard to win, and you need that consistency. You need to get guys on the same page. But I feel like this year we have that, and ultimately we [are] going to get there.”

Of course, the Sixers also have an important variable that alters their title chances in a major way — Embiid’s health. This is why for all the tidbits and quotes that have come from Sixers training camp, the rave reviews about how Embiid has looked and felt matter the most to their potential contention.

His good health — and noticeably trimmer figure — has had a positive downstream effect on how the Sixers have attacked training camp and how this team has come together. Embiid has played in just 96 regular-season games over the last three seasons, but even with that recent history against him, it’s hard not to imagine what could be for the Sixers if Embiid can just make it through the eight-month slog of the NBA season and postseason as healthy as can be.

“It’s been great being around all these guys. Fresh bodies. Fresh energy,” Embiid said. “A little different than what it’s been the last couple years. Everybody’s in a good mood, but got to keep it going. We’re gonna have some ups and downs. It’s all about staying balanced and even-keeled and go from there.”

Coach Nick Nurse chuckled when asked at what point he was able to install everything he wanted to last season, and how that compared to this training camp. A reporter suggested maybe it happened by November, perhaps December?

“It’s not very comparable, right?” Nurse said. “It’s not November or December either. Is that a good enough answer?”

That includes all the little things that require detailed coordination and drills, like out-of-bounds plays, special offensive sets, and end-of-game situations.

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“Being on the same page and organized in late and close games, both sides of the ball, which we’ve been working on pretty heavily, is critical,” Nurse said. “And it’s something we haven’t been nearly as comfortable in the last couple years, for sure, at this point of the year.”

The primary reason for that is Embiid’s availability. Multiple teammates and Nurse have heaped praise on Embiid for his presence in every practice, every drill. He played in two preseason games, and as a result, this talented but unfamiliar Sixers starting lineup has been able to start the prolonged process of finding its collective and individual identities in a new environment. Guard Tyrese Maxey said it “changes everything” that Embiid has been practicing full time.

“For him to be healthy throughout the entirety [of the preseason], you can put in more packages,” Maxey said. “There’s been times when he hasn’t been healthy, and we get into the game, and now we’re trying to learn in the flow. I’ve been here, so I know where he wants to touch [the ball] and all that stuff. If you haven’t played with a big like Joel, which there’s not many, it’s very hard, difficult to learn certain things — when to cut, when to slide over.”

But others came in without that knowledge, or at least, without an up-close view of what a healthy Embiid could do.

LeBron James has familiarity with Embiid from their gold-medal run on the 2024 U.S. Olympic team. But as James has said, that was a different, limited version of Embiid, and it has been difficult to carry over lessons about playing with Embiid in that context.

“He wanted to be a part of that team. He was a part of that team, and he gave us everything that he had physically,” James said. “He was one of the 12 guys that we all enjoyed one another throughout that whole summer, but there was times he felt great, times he didn’t feel great. That was just about him being healthy. But this summer he’s been the most healthy he’s been in a long time.”

The two have been working out together before practices to work out this new dynamic. They at least have a working knowledge of their mentality and how the other approaches their craft.

“I just think he knows my demeanor. I know his demeanor from spending that time in summer of ‘24, so it’s not foreign to us,” James said.

To former longtime foe Jaylen Brown, Embiid has met the demands his teammates have put in front of him.

“The big fella is making strides getting better each and every day,” the ex-Celtic said. “We’ve been pushing him on offense and defense, and I think he’s been meeting the challenge. He’s continuing to just get better and better — pace, quick decisions, all that type of stuff, defensive mentality. I think it’s great to see him out there, because he can dominate the game.”

Brown’s comment struck at the heart of why it has been so beneficial for Embiid to be a part of every practice for the last three weeks. Not only is the team figuring out how this is all going to work from a basketball perspective, but the players arelearning how to communicate with each other in this new light as teammates, which is different from just knowing somebody off the court.

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“He’s pushing me. Everybody’s pushing each other. So that’s a part of it,” Brown said. “As a team, we know what type of level that we want to be at and what it takes. So we’ve just got to have an understanding of that, that certain things are nonnegotiable. Defense is nonnegotiable. Effort is nonnegotiable. And everybody has to be held accountable.“

Embiid said the group has to be “on each other if we’re going to be successful.” He’s been vocal about what he thinks of the word “sacrifice,” that it shouldn’t diminish players from doing what they do best. Nor should the team be afraid to talk to each other if something doesn’t look right.

“You’re wide-open, someone doesn’t pass the ball, you got to tell him, ‘Hey, I’m open.’ On the court, off the court, hold each other accountable,” Embiid said. “I think that’s only going to help us in the long run to be able to help each other.”

That sounds great, and it’s what any team needs to do in order to be successful. But play out the string on an interaction like that taking place during a game on this specific Sixers team.

Say someone yells at someone else, or gets on them in the natural flow of a game. Social media blows up with clips of the interaction, it becomes a talking point on the internet, on talk radio that this player and that player might not get along, and is that causing internal disruption on the Sixers?

The Sixers had a trial run in this in the preseason when Knicks and ABC broadcaster Mike Breen said James scolded Embiid for being late to a practice. Breen later apologized for the report after James denied it happened.

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But it served as an example of the kind of “noise” the Sixers will face all season.

“There’s going to be a lot of outside noise to pull us apart from what we’re supposed to be and what we’re supposed to accomplish,” Embiid said. “So, it’s important that we stay together and we keep our eyes down.”

So far, it has been smooth sailing for the Sixers and Embiid through training camp. The team has a plan to manage his workload through the season, though it has not been said if Embiid has a target number of games he will play. It’s fair to assume there won’t be many, if any, back-to-backs in Embiid’s future. They’ll need a healthy Embiid even more after one of his potential backups, Ariel Hukporti, went down with a season-ending Achilles injury in the first preseason game, and depending how the season plays out, backup center might be a position the team addresses via trade.

But regardless of those behind Embiid, for the Sixers to get to their ultimate goal, they need him healthy enough to run through the finish line with the rest of the team.

“It should take a while for everybody to get on the same page,” Embiid said. “But we’re going to get there.”