Joel Embiid played just 19 games last season and has tempered expectations ahead of the 2025-26 season following his knee surgery. Embiid said he feels “pretty good” but he’s taking it day by day.
“There’s not necessarily an expectation; it’s more about making sure everything is right and doing everything right and then go from there,” he said. “Obviously the goal is to play consistently and not be the position that we were last year.”
Embiid battled his ongoing left knee injury as well as a foot sprain last season. During the 2023-24 season, Embiid was having another MVP caliber season before tearing his meniscus. Embiid returned for the playoffs and then played in the Olympics before signing a three-year, $192.9 million extension with the Philadelphia 76ers in September 2024.
Embiid was asked whether there were any on-court adjustments he could make moving forward to avoid injury.
“At times you can’t get out of yourself,” he said. “All I know is, ever since I started this, to play hard, play both ends. There’s a lot of people in the league that play one side, whether it’s offense or defense. A lot of times for me, my mentality is to do whatever it takes to win. For all of my career, it’s been having to do both.”
“I’ve gotten to this point because of how good I am at both ends of the floor. If you ask me to change the way I play, the only guess that I have is either play offense fully and take plays off defensively, which doesn’t suit me,” Embiid continued. “I don’t think I’d ever be OK with that. I don’t know. We’ll just wait and see. If it’s gotta be that way, it’s definitely going to be an adjustment, but I don’t see that happening.”