January 2017: Joel Embiid “feels great” after injury to knee, will only miss a few games.

Then put your little hand in mine, there ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb…

February 2017: Joel Embiid has a torn meniscus, but he won’t need surgery.

Then put your little hand in mine, there ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb…

March 24, 2017: Embiid’s meniscus repair surgery went just fine.

Then put your little hand in mine, there ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb…

Sept. 20, 2017: Embiid is progressing, but he’s not ready for 5-on-5

Then put your little hand in mine, there ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb…

Sept. 21, 2017: Jahlil Okafor will have every chance to play while being shopped by the 76ers.

Where have we heard this before? Embiid is hurt and the Sixers don’t know when, or if, he’ll be a full-go. Okafor is in the best shape of his life and he’ll have every opportunity to play so he can be dealt to the highest bidder.

Didn’t this all happen last year? And the year before? And the year before that? Did Embiid hurt his knee bowling in the offseason, or was that someone else? When does it end? Will it ever end? Will we all be living the same tortured season year in and year out for the rest of our lives? It’s possible we will.

God that is depressing.

I’ll give you a winter prediction: It’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be grey, and it’s gonna last the rest of your life.

The franchise has been living out its own version of Groundhog Day, with the same EXACT nonsense happening over and over and over again every season. Positivity abounds after the draft, then an injury occurs, then updates about said injury are vague, and then the season is over and we’re the Mets:

And repeat.

It happens all over again.

This is the fourth year in a row, and fifth in the past seven, where a hyped player may not be ready for the season. Andrew Bynum suffered a catastrophic knee injury in the lamest way possible when he was bowling in 2012. Nerlens Noel blew out his knee in 2013. Embiid was drafted from a hospital bed in 2014. The curse of the 76ers struck Ben Simmons in 2016 when his foot broke almost immediately upon stepping on the practice court. And Embiid may potentially AGAIN be starting off 2017 with a creaky knee.

Then put your little hand in mine, there ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb…

All we can do is wonder when this will fucking end.

What can we do to stop the cycle? Bill Murray had to live the perfect day to finally escape his tortured existence. Bryan Colangelo had better start catching kids falling out of trees, learn to play piano and fall in love with Andie MacDowell, or we’re about a week away from Markelle Fultz breaking his foot. IT’S ON YOU, BRYAN. Start learning ice sculpting NOW or Fultz is fucked.

How about more transparency? That’s an easy start to get out of this cycle. We don’t need weekly MRI updates, but after no official updates on Embiid all summer, the first update we got was a week before training camp. And of course it wasn’t good news.

The fans were told not to worry. In August, Embiid even said he would be ready for training camp. We all assumed no news was good news as we gobbled up season tickets at a record pace.

Now a week before training camp the head coach and general manager can’t answer a question about Embiid participating in the preseason.

Help us out. Give us something. And don’t let Colangelo issue any additional statements brimming with more buzzwords than an Office Space spec script:

Embiid is on a “conservative path that will put him in a planned progression to have sustainable on-court success.”

Surprised he didn’t wedge “synergy” or “paradigm shift” in there somewhere.

That’s all you need to do, Sixers. Spoon feed us a little smidgen of information, sate our appetite, and one day if all goes well we’ll wake up and it will FINALLY be February 3.

Give us something. Don’t make me resort to Murray’s first solution and dump a toaster in my bathtub. I won’t come back from that.