Each week during the 2023-2024 NBA season, we’ll dive deeper into some of the league’s biggest storylines in an effort to determine whether trends are based more on fact or fiction.

Fact or fiction: Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers are in for a long season

The NBA this week launched an investigation into former MVP Joel Embiid’s absence from the Philadelphia 76ers to start the season, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. Apparently the league has as many questions as the rest of us about the 7-footer’s continued lack of availability, and for good reason.

Embiid missed each of Philadelphia’s six preseason games with what the team called “left knee injury management.” He tore the meniscus in his left knee for a second time in January, requiring further surgery, which sidelined him until April, when he returned for Philadelphia’s playoff run at less than 100%.

He played for Team USA in the Olympics and reported to training camp on time, touting his weight loss. Maybe we should have paid more attention when Embiid told us at media day: “Physically, I’m fine. I’m not where I want to be. … Until they feel like I’m ready to go, I’m going to be definitely stop.”

Stop him, they did. The Sixers released a statement before their regular season opener, suggesting Embiid “is responding well to his individualized plan and is expected to increase his return-to-play activities this week, including scrimmaging.” He is expected to miss at least two more games to start the season.

In other words, nine months removed from a second surgery on his left knee, six months since returning to the court, three months since playing in Paris and one month into the 2024-2025 season, Embiid is starting to get into shape . This should not only set off alarm bells; it’s a five-alarm fire.

Embiid is listed at 7 feet and 280 pounds. Believe it or not, according to Basketball Reference, only four other players in history of that magnitude have ever made even one All-Star team: Shaquille O’Neal, Yao Ming, Andrew Bynum and Brook Lopez.

Bynum, whose career required multiple surgeries on both knees, retired at age 26. Yao retired five games into his age-30 season and required a fifth surgery on his left foot. Although Lopez has managed to have a long career despite three surgeries on his right foot from 2011 to 2014, he transitioned to a lower-usage role at age 30 out of self-preservation, signing for the biennial exception in 2018.

Only O’Neal maintained his dominance into his thirties. He did not undergo any major surgery in his twenties. He earned three consecutive championships (and Finals MVPs) by age 30 and led the NBA in Player Efficiency Rating each season. He would win a fourth title with the Miami Heat at age 33, as injuries began to erode his impact, and he was never the same, playing for four different teams in his final four seasons.

As a reminder, the Sixers just awarded Embiid a three-year, $192 million contract extension that will pay him nearly $70 million — a third of the projected salary cap — at age 34 in the 2028-2029 season.

Philadelphia is counting on Embiid, who turned 30 in March and became The Next Shaq. There were also questions about O’Neal’s conditioning at age 30, but at least we had proof of what was possible with him at the helm: a dynasty. He didn’t miss a single playoff game in his 20s. Embiid has never finished a season in good health.

We also have plenty of evidence that Embiid is closer to the end of his career — or at least closer to transitioning to another phase — than he is to anchoring a championship team. Look at that diagram again. Except Bynum, who was again retired for four years at this point in his career, Embiid registered the highest usage and lowest availability of anyone his size in their 20s.

And we expect him to improve if he’s already sidelined this season? In addition to resting him for the first week of the 2024-25 season, the plan is to prepare Embiid for a healthy playoff run to keep him from playing another 15 straight games. It will also provide “periodic time off during the regular season and routine evaluations by physicians and the 76ers’ medical staff,” Charania reported.

The one thing we learned from Philadelphia’s opening night loss to the Milwaukee Bucks: the Sixers are far from a contender in Embiid’s absence. They looked like a team still trying to figure out who it is when the face of their franchise isn’t on the floor, as if they haven’t had enough opportunity to prepare. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter because who they are without Embiid is irrelevant to the title race.

So the Sixers will spend the season vacillating between a team running through his oft-injured 6-foot-1, 280-pound behemoth and a team instead led by 24-year-old Tyrese Maxey. The version of the 76ers sans Embiid finished last season with a 16-27 record and were outscored by 12.6 points per 100 possessions.

In what world is this a good plan? It isn’t; it’s simply the only plan available to them. And it’s one that also depends on the health of Paul George, a 34-year-old who was on Embiid’s injured list to start the season.

George’s 74 games last season were an anomaly. He missed 40% of his games over the previous four seasons with ailments to his right shoulder, left hamstring, right foot, right elbow, right hamstring, right knee, left groin and left knee. George, who signed a four-year max contract with the Sixers in the offseason, hyperextended his left knee in the preseason and suffered a bone bruise.

Again, this gets better at 34 because he opens the season with an injury? He is also likely to miss back-to-back games this season, in addition to his absence at the start of the year. At its best the Sixers will have their full star roster for three quarters of the season, preparing one team for a title and the other to avoid falling in the standings like last season, all in the hope of getting off to a good start to the other night for the entirety of the playoffs. No team would ever ask for this.

Except for the Sixers, who just signed for another four years.

Provision: Fact. Joel Embiid and the 76ers are in for a long season.