Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Hinkie confident Joel Embiid will be back next season
PHILADELPHIA >> Even as Sam Hinkie used another NBA trade deadline to delay the Sixers’ development, he did hint Friday that there could be once source of improvement by next season.
Joel Embiid, the third overall pick in the 2014 draft who has yet to play because of recurring foot troubles, may be “raring to go” in time for the 2016-2017 season, the general manager said.
“We’re obviously excited about him and have always been excited about him because he has rare gifts and he has a real chance to have a fantastic NBA career,” Hinkie said Friday, at a posttrade-deadline press conference at PCOM. “That’s obviously been delayed because ofhis injuries, but he’s doing great. He’s doing great on all of the things thatmatter for him, which is, ‘How do you focus on every day to try to get better? And how do you take the steps that you can take to get all the way back and to give yourself the best chance you can?’
“Right now, he has kickstarted the first phase of his rehab. That’s gone really well. We expectmaybe in the last severalweeks of the season he might be more fully integrated into the teamand traveling with the team and at all of our games and the like. And then he’ll have a long summer in front of him as well where his rehab will continue.”
Hinkie confirmed that Embiid, the 7-0 center from Cameroonwho playedmost of one season at Kansas before suffering a back injury, is inQatar, workingwith accomplished sportsmedicine professionals.
“He is at this facility called ‘ Aspetar’ in Qatar that is an interesting place and one we’ve been looking at for six months that’s world-renowned and known for having some of the best sports medicine docs and rehab specialists and orthopedic surgeons and sports psychologists and dieticians and the whole gamut, sort of soup-to-nuts,” Hinkie said. “He’s there on a fairly intense program for a few days andwill be backmaybe the end of thisweek. He’ll be back a few more days.”
Though Embiid ismaking progress, the center will not likely participate in theNBA summer league.
“We haven’t talked about it in great detail,” Hinkie said. “If I had to guess, I doubt it. The first time through, he got injured and had surgery inJune andwas getting ready for the summer league in July. This last time, he had surgery in August. We definitely wouldn’t push him to be ready in July. And I’m not sure it would make a whole lot of sense at the end of the day.”
Even after sitting out for two full seasons and not playing with the Sixers this summer, Hinkie believes Embiid could be ready for the regular season. “We start with the end in mind often,” he said. “I think the goal fromhere is to back up and say, ‘Let’s have Joel raring to go for next season,’ but not for Salt Lake on the fifth of July.”
Hinkie is convinced that theQatarprogramwill help.
“It’s one that is customdesigned for him that we’ve been putting in place of the last severalmonths,” he said. “And it’s an evaluation. It kicks off his rehab, his next phase of it. There is lots of training, lots of simple stuff to look in. It’s another check before the next step. We’ve done a lot of these kinds of things. Maybe this one is more popular because it’s on the other side of the globe. Butwe’ve done a lot of these. We sent some of our personnel with him. And he’s doing great.”
With that, the vision of a 2016-2017 roster including Jahlil Okafor, Nerlens Noel, a premium pick in the upcoming draft and, at long last, Embiid, is starting to become realistic.
“So far, so good,” Hinkie said. “Joel has one a great job. He’s been super-professional. He’s brought a whole new level of maturity to the game and to his rehab and to a day-to-day approach, which honestly I think is like the key to life: Perseverance and the day-to-day approach and how to be resilient and how to focus on what you can control and how to make the best decisions you can about how to spend your energies every day.”
••• With one Joel closer to contributing, another is unlikely ever to help the Sixers. Thatwould be Joel Anthony, whowas funneled to the Sixers from Detroit through Houston in a draft-day imitative.
Anthony, a ninth-year pro fromUNLV, has played in 13 games for the Pistons this season, averaging 0.7 points.
He is still owed about $2.1 million, and is expected to be waived.
“We effectively took Joel Anthony from Houston, temporarily, for a secondround pick,” Hinkie said. “That’s to be determined in the next few days. I’ve talked to his representatives a few times already. We’ll talk somemore. We’ll talk through that, think a little bit about our goals, a little more about his.”
••• To facilitate the “temporary” acquisition of Anthony, the Sixers created roster space by waiving JaKarr Sampson. If Sampson clears waivers, he could rejoin the roster when Anthony is waived.
“That wasn’t much fun,” Hinkie said. “JaKarr has been a big part of our culture and may well continue to be. That’s a possibility, I think. By putting a guy on the waiver wires, you’ve lost control.”
••• The Sixers will visit Dallas Sunday and return Tuesday to play the Orlando Magic.