What Are the Sixers Doing with Joel Embiid? Not What You Think

Conservatively resting an injured young player in these final dregs of the regular season is, under normal circumstances, hardly cause for a second thought. But the Philadelphia 76ers have ensured, in their 23 manic months under the direction of Sam Hinkie, that nothing about their bombastically rebuilding team operates under normal circumstances.

If you are aesthetically, philosophically, or morally opposed to Philadelphia's frenetic wheeling and dealing, I betcha I can approximate the party line when it comes to the team keeping Cameroonian wunderkind Joel Embiid in a suit for the entirety of the regular season: "Of course they didn't play him—all those bastahds care about is getting their grubby hands on another lottery pick, and they don't care who they have to screw over to get it." In this worldview, Embiid is merely the latest pawn that Hinkie heartlessly shuttles around the NBA's transaction market as means towards some increasingly foggy end.

For me, though, resting Embiid is a decision that endears me to the Sixers—a declaration of values that, from my usually impartial seat, makes me root for their success.

Has Embiid been held out just so Philadelphia can achiever better draft position? I don't think so. While the Sixers have obviously put a priority on acquiring draft picks (the nitty-gritty details of which take meticulous daily accounting in order to fully comprehend), it has never actually been a priority for the team to tank to the very, very bottom of the standings. This year as last, teams who harbored playoff aspirations in October have ultimately flailed their way to fewer victories than the Sixers, and Philadelphia only has about a 15 percent chance of picking first overall this June.

A glorious dimension to Hinkie's avant-garde strategies is that he will make the gambles that other teams can't or won't dare do. In last year's draft, Hinkie was unfazed by Croatian sharpshooter Dario Saric's two-year commitment to his Turkish team, and the Sixers moved back two slots to pick him, netting a future first-rounder in the trade. On lottery night, the Sixers' trajectory as a franchise will hardly be altered regardless of where the ping-pong balls send the team on the draft board: Hinkie has so far been uncanny at wringing the most value from whatever draft position he has been dealt.

I think Embiid has been held out for a dramatically different—and far less sinister—reason: the team is genuinely concerned about his long-term health. The first hint that the Sixers could rest Embiid for the entirety of his would-be rookie season came on draft night itself, when Hinkie addressed the media in a post-draft press conference. When asked about the time-frame for Embiid's recovery from a broken navicular (foot) bone, Hinkie launched into the following soliloquy:

Guess what our approach will be. We will focus on the long-term health of the player. We've had this discussion before. I don't want that to sound glib, 'cause it's not, 'cause it's like, that is all that matters, honestly. It's all that matters, is the long-term health of the player. And so, will we be smart about that? Of course. Will we be thoughtful about that? I hope so. Will we be patient? Yes. Yes, we will focus on giving him every chance to be as healthy as he can be to have the kind of career that he can have. And if he can remain healthy -- which I think there's a very, very good chance -- if he can remain healthy he can have a fantastic, fantastic NBA career.

Doesn't that sound like a dude you'd like to work for? Nowhere in Hinkie's calculus is there consideration that a cost-controlled year on a rookie contract—the most cost-efficient asset in the NBA marketplace—would evaporate into the ether. For a team that hoards assets like none we've previously seen, they wouldn't punt one away unless they genuinely believed in the cause.

In the meantime, players are still cycling in and out of the Philadelphia locker room at a historically rapid pace. Is this evidence that a hard drive full of projection models sits where a beating heart should be? I'm not so sure. The Sixers are quick to deal away players, sure, but it's not like they've invented the idea of cutting or trading guys who wear their uniform. Maybe Hinkie's methods are different only by a matter of degree instead of representing a wholly new evil.

The unique enormity of Philadelphia's situation is starting to reveal itself. This team has and will have more financial flexibility and under-25 stars than any other franchise. I invite you to indulge in a highlight tape and get ready for the future.