NBA Draft Rumors: Joel Embiid may miss entire 2014 season
By Josh Hill
The NBA Draft is just around the corner and it appears we’ve already had our first major shakeup with the Joel Embiid injury now thrusting the entire top half of the order into utter chaos. Where there was already drama about who would make up the first handful of picks, teams are now adjusting to exclude Embiid from the top of their lists with some taking him off altogether.
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The initial diagnosis for Embiid had nothing to do with his back that so many people have been talking about, rather a new injury to his foot that will require surgery. Embiid’s stress fracture in his foot is something that will cause him to miss at least four months it seems with six months being a possibility as well.
According to ESPN.com’s Chad Ford, some teams in the draft even fear that six months is too soon and that Embiid could be lost for the entire season.
That’s something that is going to spread like wildfire in war rooms across the league, as losing Embiid for his entire rookie season — essentially red-shirting him — means that you won’t get to see if he has what it takes until 2015 at the earliest, which is a problem. We saw this with Nerlens Noel last summer and he dropped way below the No. 1 overall pick with fans even forgetting about him at times in the lottery. The same might be said for Embiid who is going to need to try and shed cement blocks that have been tied to his broken feet and are sinking his stock.