The Sixers medical staff gets a second chance in 2017

By Josh Liddick, Sports Talk Philly editor 

Injuries are a part of every sport, there's no changing that cruel reality. From time to time, your favorite player(s) may experience an injury, whether it be minor or severe.

For some players, having some kind of injury occur is more frequent than others. And it seems as if the injury bug is always hitting the Philadelphia 76ers' players.

Last season, the Sixers saw players like Ben Simmons, Jerryd Bayless, and Robert Covington go down with season-ending injuries. Simmons never even stepped foot on the court during the regular season. Bayless, an older player, was never meant to be a major starter for the Sixers, and his injury prompted the rise of T.J. McConnell. Covington's injury proved to be a bit more costly, however, by the time he was gone for the year, the Sixers were already firmly planning for the offseason.

Then there's Joel Embiid, who, let's face it, had a pretty rough 2016-17 season. There were those 31 games, that were completely majestic.

31 games of pure bliss for Sixers fans, that all-in-all, despite a 26-win season, made the year, for a lot of people, a success.

But with the success, came a lot of harsh truths about the people who have treated Embiid medically for the last three seasons, and the management that have called the shots when it came down to whether or not Embiid was healthy enough to play in certain games last season, despite a lingering knee problem.

The Sixers medical staff was, let's just say it, incompetent last season.

There were times when we weren't sure of Embiid's status on whether his knee was just a minor injury, or a slight tear of his meniscus. For all we know, the injury may not have been as critical as we were led to believe.

What does that say about the management, who's job is purely to build a championship-winning franchise that will excite and entertain it's millions of expressive, rabid, title-hungry fans?

For many teams, in whatever sport you want to plug into this scenario, the moment a player goes down with any kind of injury, they are put through the proper courses of action for diagnosis, and as a fan or media member, you'll know exactly what has happened to that player, and the amount of time they are expected to miss on the field or court.

And if there are setbacks along the way, the management will inform everyone the truth of what has happened.

In this day and age, it feels that a lot of sports organizations are for the most part, pretty truthful when it comes to the injuries of their players.

Yes, there is that sense of disappointment, and sometimes questioning whether the medical staff has done their job correctly, but it is once in a blue moon.

I don't think there was one time last season, that the Sixers had correctly predicted the return of one of their players.

I believe I'm not the only one who thought that Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid would be playing together by mid-January when the Houston Rockets came to the Wells Fargo Center.

We were led to believe that Simmons' foot injury was not nearly as serious as they initially thought, and he would be getting some kind of playing time, in whatever capacity that may be.

And for Embiid, who's bright idea was it for him to play against Houston in the condition he was in?

Like all Philly fans, it was a joy to watch Embiid play against the Rockets in Philly and put on a show against one of the best teams in the Western Conference.

But of course, there would've been consequences. After that game, Embiid didn't play for the rest of the season. The Sixers actually played well enough to be considered to make a run at the eighth seed in the playoffs, but the questionable decision to play Embiid on that Friday night, while he nursed an injury, may have costed them that chance.

Sixers' GM Bryan Colangelo has represented the Sixers from a management and medical standpoint since the day he took over for Sam Hinkie. That's his job, to be the figure-head and spokesperson for the team.

And yes, there was undoubtedly more wrong than right spewed from the mouth of the general manager. And has the summer commenced, and Markelle Fultz was ushered in, it seems as if the Sixers are finally getting somewhere with this team.

Hopefully, Ben Simmons is actually 100-percent ready to play this season, and the Jones fracture in his foot won't spell any additional problems for the coming year.

Wouldn't it be nice if the medical staff actually did something right for once and cleared a player when they were actually ready to play?

There has been a lot of criticism surrounding the decision not to clear Joel Embiid yet, after suffering his meniscus injury almost eight months ago.

But do you blame the Sixers for waiting so long? At this point, I would take that cautiousness over carelessness any day of the week.

Being a seven-foot tall basketball player will put you at greater risk for lower-body injuries, that's a truth that is a tough pill to swallow, but will never change.

Again, putting Joel Embiid into a crucial game scenario back in January with the high-risk of re-injuring his knee was a careless move on the part of the management and medical staff.

Waiting to clear Embiid until he is for sure ready to resume basketball activities is a cautious, yet necessary move to the future of their star big-man.

I understand completely, the want for Embiid, Simmons, and Fultz to be all playing together on opening night completely healthy. I really do, because I equally want it too.

But, the Sixers as an organization has a chance here to do the right thing with their injured players. 

As long as they stay honest and true with their fans and media members, hopefully in 2017-18, the Sixers will turn the corner and be a, for the most part, reasonably healthy team.

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