On June 13, the 76ers said there was “less healing than anticipated at this point” in Embiid’s right foot. On July 11 they repeated that line, and revealed that Embiid would have another surgery on the foot, and likely miss the upcoming season. But Cooney’s report questions the idea that there was “less healing than anticipated.” He says that Embiid re-broke the navicular bone in his foot, the same injury that kept him out of the entirety of his rookie season. That’s a pretty curious definition of “less healing than anticipated,” if Embiid did indeed (re)break the navicular bone.
This isn’t the only statement from the 76ers that Cooney questions. He writes that on July 9—just two days before the team announced that Embiid would have surgery on his foot—GM Sam Hinkie didn’t mention anything about surgery to reporters questioning him about Embiid’s health, and said he’d give an update soon. Yet Jahlil Okafor later told The Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Keith Pompey that he had known about Embiid’s surgery for “a couple of weeks.”
Finally, nobody seems to know when the reported re-break occurred, and what activity Embiid is or isn’t allowed to undertake. Cooney writes that until June 13 was practicing full bore, and after the announcement of “less healing than anticipated” he was still taking flat-footed shots at the team’s practice facility, and wasn’t wearing a boot nor limping. And last week in Las Vegas, after the announcement of his season-ending surgery, Embiid was spotted running “up the steps at the Thomas and Mack Center toward the concourse level.”