Can Joel Embiid win Rookie of the Year?

Once Philadelphia 76ers point-forward Ben Simmons suffered a Jones fracture during a preseason practice, the NBA’s 2016-17 Rookie of the Year race was blown wide open.

If Joel Embiid has his way, the award will still be presented in Philadelphia next spring.

After missing his first two NBA seasons to recover from back-to-back foot surgeries, Embiid hit the ground running in preseason. It didn’t take him long to shake off the rust from that long layoff, scoring at least 11 points in each of his final five preseason contests despite never playing more than 20 minutes. He finished his exhibition slate with an 18-point, nine-rebound effort in 18 minutes against the Miami Heat, seemingly cementing himself as one of the Rookie of the Year front-runners.

If Embiid is able to maintain the same level of per-minute efficiency during the regular season—he averaged an eye-popping 27.9 points, 14.7 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per 36 minutes throughout the preseason—he’s going to run away with the award. He’ll have to overcome a few obstacles en route to his coronation, though.

First, given his history of foot injuries, the Sixers figure to be overly cautious with him, particularly at the start of the year. Head coach Brett Brown plans on playing him 20 minutes on opening night, according to Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated, and his status for back-to-back games — the Sixers have 17 such slates this season — remains uncertain.

“That is still on the table in that we are considering it,” Brown told reporters in mid-October in reference to Embiid playing in back-to-backs. “To say it will happen, I can’t say that. But it’s certainly progressed from ‘no back-to-backs’ to ‘we are looking at it.'”

For Embiid to have any realistic shot of winning Rookie of the Year, he’ll need the back-to-back restriction lifted at some point. In non-lockout-shortened seasons since the NBA-ABA merger, only two players who won Rookie of the Year missed more than 15 games. Patrick Ewing, who missed 32 games in the 1985-86 season, averaged 20.0 points, 9.0 rebounds and 2.1 blocks in 35.4 minutes per night, blowing past Seattle’s Xavier McDaniel and Karl Malone in the voting. Brandon Roy, who missed 25 games in 2006-07, received all but one first-place vote after averaging 16.8 points, 4.4 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 1.2 steals in 35.4 minutes per night.

Even if Embiid plays north of 70 games, historical precedent suggests he’ll need his minutes restriction significantly loosened as well. Since the merger, Mike Miller is the lone Rookie of the Year to average fewer than 30 minutes per game, and the cast of characters he was competing against — Kenyon Martin, Marc Jackson, Darius Miles and Morris Peterson — wasn’t exactly a murderer’s row of future All-Stars. If the Sixers limit Embiid to somewhere between 25-30 minutes per game for most of the year, his per-minute efficiency will need to be through the roof for him to have a legitimate chance at taking home the award.

The current composition of the Sixers’ roster only further dims Embiid’s Rookie of the Year prospects. While Nerlens Noel is expected to be out for roughly a month after undergoing knee surgery Monday, according to Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer, both he and Jahlil Okafor are lurking as competition for Embiid’s minutes. Simmons, who the Sixers hope could return in January, Dario Saric and Richaun Holmes figure to gobble up a grand majority of the minutes at the power forward. Unless general manager Bryan Colangelo shakes up the roster by trading Noel or Okafor — the former’s surgery likely decreases the odds of a move in the short term — Embiid won’t have a clear pathway to 35-plus minutes per game even if the Sixers remove his playing-time restrictions.

For Embiid to win Rookie of the Year, then, he’ll need a perfect confluence of events to unfold. First, he can’t suffer any health-related setbacks, eventually encouraging the Sixers to allow him to play back-to-backs or average north of 30 minutes per game. Noel will likewise need to recover from his surgery without complications, allowing Colangelo to move either him or Okafor to free up more playing time for Embiid. Unless the Kansas product has all of his restrictions removed, he’ll need to maintain his stunning per-minute efficiency from the preseason. And finally, no other rookie can hit the ground running, putting up huge per-game numbers that dwarf Embiid’s.

If Embiid remains healthy and averages somewhere around 14 points and eight rebounds per game, narrative could weigh on voters’ minds — namely, they’d be inclined to reward him for bouncing back after starting his career off on the wrong foot. (Pun intended.) Hell, maybe he’s so physically dominant that voters can’t deny him the award, even if other rookies put up more impressive per-game statistics. Based on historical voting trends, though, Embiid is looking up at the likes of Kris Dunn, Buddy Hield, Brandon Ingram and even his own teammate, Saric.

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