Philadelphia 76ers: Joel Embiid exits Cavs game with a shoulder injury

After only eight minutes of action, Joel Embiid left the Philadelphia 76ers game against the Cleveland Cavaliers with a shoulder injury.

When the Philadelphia 76ers took the court against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday night, it was must-watch television.

Not because the game was expected to be particularly good, as the Cavs are on their fourth head coach in two seasons after parting ways with John Beilein post-All-Star break, but because it was the Sixers’ first game since Ben Simmons was officially declared out for the foreseeable future with a back injury.

With their immediate future set, folks like yours truly hypothesized about how the Sixers would weather Simmons’ injury. Would the team start Matisse Thybulle to make up for Simmons’ defensive versatility? Would the team sign a player like Tyler Johnson off the buyout market? And what about Joel Embiid? How would his role change as the team’s unquestioned star?

Unfortunately, these questions remain unanswered.

Eight minutes into the Eastern Conference contest, Embiid collided with 6-foot-10 Cavs center Ante Zizic and immediately exited to the locker room with a left shoulder injury.

He fruitlessly attempted to return to the bench but after a few minutes of uncomfortability headed back to the locker room and was ruled out for the rest of the game.

From that point on, you could more or less change the channel, as a Sixers game without Simmons and Embiid isn’t a Sixers game worth watching.

With Embiid and Norvel Pelle out, the Sixers had to run some pretty bizarre lineups centered around Al Horford, Tobias Harris, and Furkan Korkmaz, with Kyle O’Quinn earning his first minutes since February 3rd, but without Embiid and Simmons, what’s the point? Without their two homegrown top-3 picks, this team has a bottom-10 roster and may struggle to beat the lowly New York Knicks when they return to the Wells Fargo Center Thursday night.

Needless to say, let’s collectively hope for some good news on the injury front over the next 12-24 hours, as any hopes of the Philadelphia 76ers securing homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs could very well hang in the balance.