Brett Brown: 'Our Intention Is To Play Joel Embiid After Break'
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- On Saturday night, nearly three weeks after Joel Embiid hyperextended his knee, Sixers general manager Bryan Colangelo announced the 7'2" rookie has a "very minor" meniscal tear.
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Head coach Brett Brown downplayed the injury, saying the plan is to get Embiid back on the court after the all-star break.
"It was after the fact," Brown told Angelo Cataldi and the 94WIP Morning Show on Wednesday, when asked when he learned about Embiid's partial meniscal tear.
Listen: Brett Brown on the 94WIP Morning Show
"And I think the thing that has caught probably the public off guard, is the people in the know felt it was a preexisting injury. Everybody should hear this, our intention is we're gonna play him. He's gonna do what he's doing, he's gonna come back after the all-star break and it's our intention to get him back on the court. Nobody would do that if it was something that we felt was significant. The injury was a bone bruise and I feel like when people hear meniscus, people's eyes and ears go up and I understand. But really the end game for us, is we hope to get him back on the court after the all-star break."
Over the past few weeks, Embiid's partial meniscal tear was never mentioned to the public until Derek Bodner broke the story, forcing the team to announce the injury. This has created speculation that the team was intentionally deceiving the fan base by excluding the information.
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"I get it and I take tremendous pride on making sure that personally and the club, that you handle yourself with some honesty and credibility," Brown said. "It's when I hear that being thrown out for me, that I start listening to doctors that feel like this is a preexisting injury. And then you hear other doctors saying, 'And by the way we're gonna bring him back out on the court and get him back out playing.' The minimal way that they've explained, you just sort of dust it off and you move on. The problem is the bone bruise.
"I hear you Angelo and it's something that perhaps should have been said and delivered just like I just did, where it was something where nobody was really raising their eyebrows about. The injury is the bone bruise and the preexisting injury we can deal with later."
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Despite back-to-back foot surgeries to start his career and now a knee injury, Brown isn't worried about the longevity of Embiid's career.
"I'm not worried," Brown said of Embiid long-term. "I understand, I mean how can you not listen to those facts that you just said and not sort of responsibly ask the question that you just asked. I feel when we can actually get him in shape -- because he really hasn't been in shape, he hasn't had the opportunity to get into the shape that I'm talking about for a long time. And I think he plays with such a reckless abandon. The things that we all love about him, at times put him in very compromising positions.
"I'm trusting Joel, I'm trusting our strength and conditioning people, etcetera, that we're gonna build a base. A strong base, a calculated base, that could perhaps put him in less compromising situations moving forward."
