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948 Days of JoJo: Joel Embiid’s Long and Winding Road to His NBA Debut
By Jim Adair
Published:
It been a long, long road. Let’s look at how we got here:
2014
March 1st: Embiid goes down with a back injury in a game for Kansas. It’s the last organized basketball game he’ll play until tonight. The Sixers retire Allen Iverson’s number 3.
March 3rd: Steve Keeley is nearly killed by a snow plow.
March 8th: Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanishes.
March 28th: The Eagles release DeSean Jackson.
May 20th: The Sixers get picks number 3 and 10 in the 2014 NBA Draft Lottery.
June 9th: Kyle makes huge mistake, hires Jim.
June 19th: Joel Embiid is shown to have broken his foot at some point in the pre-draft process. The presumptive #1 pick throws the top-3 projections in the draft into disarray.
June 26th: The Sixers draft Joel Embiid at number 3, spawning a million memes. Kyle writes a post titled “We May Be Nearing the End of the Dom Brown Era.”
July 17th: Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is shot down over the Ukraine.
August 11th: Robin Williams dies.
September 8th: Joel Embiid tells Billboard that Nicki Minaj “got a big butt, and she uses it well.”
October 13th: John Wick is released.
October 16th: Joel’s younger brother Arthur dies in a car accident in Cameroon.
December 19th: The Phillies trade Jimmy Rollins to the Dodgers.
2015
January 6th: Embiid is reportedly sent home from a road trip to “focus on his conditioning” after he gains weight.
February 19th: The Sixers trade Michael Carter-Williams.
March 6th: The Sixers post video that shows Embiid dunking in between his legs in pre-game warmups.
March 9th: It’s reported Embiid has suffered a “minor setback.”
March 24th: A Germanwings A320-211 crashes into the Alps.
April 13th: Avengers: Age of Ultron is released.
April 18th: It’s reported that Embiid was previously fined by the team for issues with his work ethic.
June 2nd: FIFA President Sepp Blatter announces plans to resign, doesn’t.
June 14th: Adrian Wojnarowski reports that a scan of Embiid’s foot revealed “an issue in the healing process.”
June 25th: The Sixers draft Jahlil Okafor.
June 30th: Brett Brown says Embiid is 7’2″ now.
July 1st: Sam Hinkie fleeces the Kings for a first round pick, pick swap, Nik Stauskas and Carl Landry.
July 7th: RADIO WARS: A Rift Between Tony Bruno and Josh Innes May Doom the WIP Afternoon Show
July 11th: It’s announced that Embiid will have another surgery and miss his second full season.
July 21st: Embiid is spotted by TMZ walking around without a boot on.
July 29th: The Phillies trade Cole Hamels.
August 18th: Joel Embiid has his second surgery.
August 19th: The Phillies trade Chase Utley.
September 28th: NASA announces they found evidence of liquid water on Mars.
December 29th: The Eagles fire Chip Kelly.
2016
January 10th: David Bowie dies.
February: Embiid is sent to Qatar to work with a superteam of trainers and doctors in his rehab process.
March 6th: Nancy Reagan dies.
April 6th: Sam Hinkie resigns.
June 23rd: The UK votes to leave the European Union.
July 23rd: Videos emerge of Embiid training and also beating Justin Bieber in an arm wrestling match.
August 5th: The Rio Olympics begin.
September 14th: The Ringer drops a mockumentary about Joel Embiid’s career and an article hyping him up as the NBA’s next great big man, if healthy.
September 25th: Arnold Palmer dies.
And tonight, finally, it happens: October 4th: Joel Embiid is set to make his NBA pre-season debut, his first basketball game in 948 days. Trust the process.
When he's not writing about sports here or ranting about them on Twitter, Jim is probably watching X-Files on Netflix or drinking a beer somewhere. Jim has nothing against hockey, it's just not his style. He once met Duce Staley at a Sixers game.