Philadelphia 76ers coach Nick Nurse shared hope that Joel Embiid will return to playing soon. He mentioned that Embiid’s recent sinus fracture is “not nearly as severe” as the two previous facial fractures the NBA MVP suffered in his career.
Embiid got hurt in the first half of Friday night’s 121-107 loss to the Indiana Pacers when he was hit in the face by Bennedict Mathurin while trying to grab a defensive rebound.
The 76ers announced that Embiid will be rechecked in a week. Embiid will not play on Monday night against the Charlotte Hornets.
“The only thing that I can compare it to, but I wasn’t here, but he certainly had those other ones that were a lot worse,” Nurse said before the Hornets game. “It’s not nearly as severe as those two from what they tell me. So I guess that’s good because those were pretty tough — those two — and they say it’s not as bad as that.”
In 2018, Embiid fractured his left orbital bone and had a concussion after colliding with teammate Markelle Fultz. This injury kept him out for the last eight games of the regular season and the first two games of the 2018 NBA Playoffs.
In April 2022, Embiid was elbowed by Pascal Siakam during Philadelphia’s series-clinching Game 6 win. This caused a fracture in his right orbital bone, forcing him to miss the first two games of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
Embiid has only played six games this season due to knee soreness, averaging just 20.3 points per game for the 76ers (7-16), which is below his career average.
“Listen, it’s hard enough for him to get himself ready to go,” Nurse added. “The knee after the surgery and all that stuff is enough to focus on. This isn’t going to help his ability to condition. He’s going to have to recover from some of this stuff — the breathing isn’t going to be easy for a little bit, so obviously it makes it really difficult.
He’s just going to have to deal with it. Hopefully, he’s getting all of these little things out of the way so he can focus on his recovery of the knee and get back out there for a stretch of games.”
