Monday was a tough day for Sixers fans. The team released a new injury report that offered less than optimistic news about both Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.
Embiid is out “indefinitely” and will have another MRI as he deals with swelling and soreness in his left knee that has kept him out since Jan. 27, while Simmons had to have another procedure on his injured right foot to attempt to accelerate the healing process.
Medical update (2/2):
•Simmons minor foot procedure to stimulate bone growth, accelerate healing. Likely to resume training by end of week.— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) February 27, 2017
In the team’s injury release, it was revealed that the procedure was to inject bone marrow into the Jones’ fracture site in an effort to “stimulate bone growth and accelerate healing.” This comes days after it was announced that the No. 1 overall pick would be out for the remainder of the season after a recent scan revealed the bone is not healing fully.
The Sixers expect Simmons to return to “normal training,” whatever that is at this stage of his recovery, by the end of the week following the procedure, but it is a concrete indication of what has gone wrong with his injury to this point. After such a promising January, when Embiid was playing great and the Sixers were winning games, it’s been a sobering start to February for the snake-bitten Philadelphia franchise.
After what we saw with Embiid sitting out his first two seasons after being drafted, you would expect the Sixers to take their time with Simmons. Hopefully by the start of the 2017-18 season Embiid and Simmons are ready to play together and can leave the injury woes that have plagued the Sixers since 2013 behind.
