Seconds before Spike and I fired up the Rights To Ricky Sanchez machine, news broke that Joel Embiid's injury will require a second surgery, likely keeping him out for the entire season. This week's podcast turned into a gut reaction fest, instead of the Las Vegas Summer League preview it had meant to become.
I'll write something more considered in the next few days, but this is just devastating. For Joel, for the team, for the fans. Lots of people will take to Twitter to point fingers about the failure of Sam Hinkie's front office, but the fact is: they took a calculated risk for the sake of a generational talent.
There's an opportunity cost to passing on Embiid. You don't get many chances for that Talent. Randle, Exum come out in every draft.
— Derek Bodner (@DerekBodnerNBA) July 11, 2015
Also, I still take Embiid 10x out of 10. Rebuilds don't fail because you miss out on average, or even good, players. Elite talent rare.
— Derek Bodner (@DerekBodnerNBA) July 11, 2015
It hasn't worked out. Hopefully surgery does the trick and Joel can play basketball someday. I hate this.
We also discuss some Jahlil Okafor stuff, and bounce back at the end of the podcast to talk about our Kevin Durant dreams. That would be nice. What if things were nice?
I'm in Vegas fo Summer League with Jake and Sean. We'll have plenty of goofy things to tweet in the next few days because Summer League is the best, but it'll be damn hard to get the Embiid shadow out of our thoughts. Shit, man.