Joel Embiid questionable for Wednesday’s game against Brooklyn

Now home after a highly successful 5-0 road trip on the West Coast, the Philadelphia listed their initial injury report for Wednesday night’s game against the Brooklyn Nets.

Embiid’s status doesn’t come as much of a surprise after the news earlier today that he only did minimal work at team practice:

However, the foot soreness is a bit concerning considering Embiid will have had five full rest days heading into tomorrow night’s game. The team sat both he and James Harden out of Saturday night’s game against the Sacramento Kings due to injury recovery/management, which looked like classic load management and not something that would carry over to Wednesday.

On the optimistic side of things, though, Embiid was on the court for a while post-practice, scrimmaging with coaches for approximately 20 minutes.

My guess is Embiid will play, but the foot soreness is a real thing that we will have to keep an eye on moving forward.

The Sixers will certainly hope to make avail of Embiid’s services. Riding their five-game winning streak, Philadelphia has seized sole possession of second place in the Eastern Conference. With Kevin Durant remaining out due a sprained MCL in his right knee, the Nets have slipped to fourth place in the East, but have won two straight, including a huge comeback win over Golden State. Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons are both clear of the injury report and will be suiting up. Brooklyn is just one game shy of the Sixers in the standings.

Of course, fans want to see Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons suit up on opposing teams for the first time. Ben didn’t play in the game against the Sixers following the trade last year, and Joel was unavailable for the Sixers’ win against the Nets earlier this season.

Will we finally see what the internet boards have been clamoring for over the last year, or will Joel’s left foot further delay this episode of must-see TV? We’ll await further updates and ultimately find out tomorrow.