CAMDEN, N.J. — If you were tracking buzzwords from Joel Embiid on the opening day of 76ers training camp Monday, you would not have gotten the bulletin-board material of years’ past.
He started out with a plea for “consistency” in roster composition that has so far eluded him. He spoke about “empowering” teammates, and he luxuriated in the glow of winning a gold medal at the Paris Olympics with Team USA.
Of course, Embiid couldn’t help himself with one declaration, albeit one that won’t spark controversy, by his standards or anyone else’s. Embiid’s main goal is to be healthy at the business end of a 76ers season.
“As soon as we lost last year, I texted Daryl (Morey, Sixers president of basketball operations) and I was like, we’ve got to do whatever it takes to make sure that in the postseason, I’m helping,” Embiid said Monday in Camden. “So this year, there’s no agenda, there’s no All-Star, there’s no All-NBA, there’s none of that. It’s whatever it takes to make sure that I get to that point and I’m ready to go.
“Basically every single year of my career, I’ve been hurt in the playoffs. So I think that’s the goal. And it’s all about doing whatever it takes to get there.”
Embiid, now 30 and 10 years removed from his draft night, knows the score. He’s won two NBA scoring titles, an MVP award and seven All-Star nods. And zero playoff series beyond the first round, a 5-7 record overall in series.
So for all the discussion of the merits of Paul George as a teammate vs. Ben Simmons or James Harden or Jimmy Butler, or how high Tyrese Maxey’s ceiling is, or what a slew of veterans with championship pedigrees can sum to, all of it becomes academic if the 76ers don’t have Embiid healthy when the calendar flips to April.
“We’re going to be really smart about it obviously,” Morey said. “We’re very focused on April, May, June. That doesn’t mean that the time right now isn’t very important as well. We’re going to be very smart about how we manage him through the season.”
That’s been the challenge for … well, for as long as Embiid has been in Philadelphia, which is a full decade, eight of the seasons ones in which he played games. All involved know that they only way to case endless discourse about knee ligaments and orbital bones is a championship. While no one came out and said that Monday, they didn’t exactly need to, not for it being obvious but for a team that hasn’t seen a conference final perhaps not yet earning that right.
Instead, Embiid bounded to the podium Monday estimating he is 25 or 30 pounds lighter than last season, with a plan to cut more weight. He is coming off a significant summer, playing into August internationally, earning a nifty gold medal and a buoying sense of achievement.
“I finally won something,” Embiid, in on the joke, said. “I finally got to the conference finals, and I won something. So that was fun.”
Embiid’s health was implicit in the 76ers bolstering the frontcourt in the offseason, moving on from Paul Reed in favor of veteran Andre Drummond.
They project as a better rebounding team thanks to Caleb Martin, Guershon Yabusele and Drummond, who took the chance at the microphone Monday to call himself, “the best rebounder to ever play the game,” not once but twice.
In finding a counterpoint to him and Maxey, the team sought to maximize Embiid’s impact with the spacing darling that George has been throughout his career.
“I think this is the first time that I’ve played with an elite point guard and big man all at once,” George said. “So for us, it’s kind of just countering off each other. Nothing’s forced for one person to kind of take that load alone, and kind of share that responsibility. I see us flowing. I think all of us can kind of play our game within the game.”
And yet, Embiid’s role is changing. He’s the longest tenured 76er by some way. Considering only four holdovers remain from opening night in 2023, that’s not the highest bar to clear.
The 76ers said all the right things Monday about sharing, and managing, the load.
Embiid, in turn, seems willing to forsake the spotlight if that’s what’s best for the team. He doesn’t want to have to be the guy, especially if more group participation leads him to his ultimate goal.
“My job this year and what I really want to focus on is empowering these guys,” Embiid said. “I will do it when I have to, if it means I have to score some points, then I’m going to do it. But most of the time, I really want to focus on really letting the game come to me.”
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