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Joel Embiid is Quietly Playing his Best Basketball in Some Time
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Don’t look now, but Joel Embiid has played 14 of the Sixers’ last 18 games and has done this going back to December 12th:
It’s the best basketball he’s played since a five-game spurt between 2024 and 2025 when he scored more than 25 points in five consecutive games against the Celtics, Jazz, Blazers, Warriors, and Nets. He then missed a full month between 1/4/25 and 2/4/25 and played six more games before being shut down for the year.
We haven’t seen this kind of consistency in both health and performance since the end of the 2023-2024 regular season, so much so that there’s All-Star chatter on social, but it’s coming from the hardcore coops fans.
Why, then, has there been an absence of buzz from Philadelphia sports fans and media at large?
It’s likely the same thing as last year and the year before. People are wary, hesitant to re-commit to the Sixers when they think Embiid’s next big injury is just around the corner. How many times can you jump back on the bandwagon without getting burned? It’s the old “fool me once” aphorism that’s keeping casual Philadelphia sports fans at bay. At the same time, what’s the number of games that Embiid has to play to pull these fans back in? Is it 45? 50? Is it simply guiding his health into a clean postseason for the first time ever?
What’s worth repeating is that a lot of four-for-four fans were already in “wake me up when the playoffs begin” mode long before Embiid suffered an injury-ravaged 2024-2025 season. His health history played a role in that, but there was already an existing zeitgeist that the Phillies are now going through, that period when the vibes have worn off and you just desperately want to see this Sixers team get out of the second round. For that reason, you’re probably not watching them play the Pacers at home on a Monday night when Indiana is battling Miami in the national title game.
Regardless, we haven’t seen Joel Embiid like this in a long time. And the East is wide open.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com