Brett Brown spoke at length pregame yesterday about Joel Embiid’s left knee soreness and what he describes as a non-correlation to the center’s All-Star Game participation.

I don’t think he wanted to speak at length, but he knows, and we all know, that the status of the Sixers’ best and most important player is topic #1 always and forever.

Brown reiterated that the Sixers knew about the soreness prior to the All-Star weekend, but doubled-down in rebuffing the notion that Embiid’s 23 minutes in Charlotte were detrimental to his near-term Sixers availability.

After the jump, a full transcript of his Thursday evening comments, which began off the top with Jon Johnson, the local radio host, not the Los Angeles Ram:

Jon Johnson: When Joel does return, are there measures that need to be taken to protect him from himself for the remainder of the regular season? Some type of restriction –

Brown: I think it just needs to be consistent, open communication with Joel. To sort of pre-ordain a plan at this stage of the season, I don’t think that that is the answer. I do think that an honest dialogue of ‘how do you feel?’, judgment of loading, all of that stuff is fair. Does it end up meaning that there is some type of plan, like you suggested? Possibly. But in relation to it being something like you can perfectly guess and perfectly script, I think that that would be borderline ambitious and a little bit naive to think that we can predict stuff.

Howard Eskin: Brett, just to make it clear, you said it wasn’t the All-Star Game. Did he have it before? Did he have these problems before? Because he was questionable for a lot of games.

Brown: We’ve known he’s had some soreness for a while. He and I have talked freely about it. If you went to anybody in my locker room, you could find a similar type of answer. Was there anything irresponsible going on previously or did the All-Star Game exacerbate it? No, it’s part of being a pro player. Oftentimes players have soreness –

Eskin: But he’s your franchise. Do you think it was a good idea, being that this existed before, for him to play, and then go out and dance and do all the things that – he’s a guy who likes to do it.

Brown: I think that, I hear you Howard, I getcha. And I think he did and the medical staff did (think it was okay), and so he did (participate). I think to try to have some conspiracy theory, where we want to connect the dots to the All-Star Game would be, again, I think fairly ambitious.

Eskin: You said that time is what caused this, right?

Brown: I said what?

Eskin: Didn’t you say the time off exasperates… whatever that word is..

Brown: Exacerbate. Let me explain. When we say ‘time off,’ sitting in a chair and playing video games doesn’t help him. That could equal rest but that’s not the rest that we’re talking about. You can rest and do active things in a weight room to strengthen the area. So the difference of sitting in a chair and doing video games as rest, vs. not playing and going into a weight room while you’re not running up and down the floor is our version of rest. That environment will help him.

Eskin: So that’s why he’s gonna have at least a week off before reevaluating.

Brown: That’s right.

Rich Hofmann: He’s been dealing with not just the ankle and back –

Brown: At what point can we talk about Miami? I’m not (inaudible). I’m doctor Brown.

Hofmann: You say everybody is dealing with different ailments. Is there something where he has to learn what ankle soreness or what back soreness he can play through?

Brown: Possibly. I think that playing at 7’2″ and 275 pounds is different from all of us mortals. I think that his awareness, his understanding of his body, along with that competitive desire and desire to be with his teammates, there is a toggle. And I’m sure that if he was sitting here answering the questions you’re asking me, he would be able to tell you that he has learned a lot, and I think he is managing himself, he’s doing the work he needs to keep his body ready. In regard to what does that mean, what does he learn in this season where he’s played the most, I’m sure he would be able to tell you better things. To Howard’s question I believe, what’s it mean going forward, how do we monitor it, I think that will be a deeper discussion with Joel and the medical staff.

(other topics later came up, then I asked Brett about Embiid later)

Crossing Broad: Brett, the Joel thing, is this just bad optics more than anything? If you’re a Sixers fan, you are looking at this, in the most simple terms, as a guy playing in a meaningless basketball game, and now he’s unavailable for multiple games that actually do mean something.

Brown: I get the optics side of it, but I feel like, to connect the dots on like, it exacerbated an injury, is wrong.

I get it, but the whole thing just feels a little out of whack to me, hence the question about optics.

When you boil it down to the most basic terms here, you’ve got a guy participating in a pointless game, yet he is now missing three games that actually matter. I also mentioned in yesterday’s column that I understand the importance of the All-Star Game to players and how it’s considered an honor and a privilege to participate. Of course Joel and Ben Simmons would want to play in that game, and none of us should be so naive as to think that the ASG is unimportant from that perspective.

It just looks quirky from a fan and media perspective. I hate the optics.