Joel Embiid Will Make the Decision to Play or Not on Saturday

Will Joel Embiid be able to play in the playoffs? That's been the most significant question of the week. For a while, everybody was under the belief that the Sixers were just playing it safe and giving Embiid all the rest that he needs to ensure that he's energized and healthy for the playoffs, but then the Sixers gave everybody a scare recently.

About a half-hour before the season finale on Wednesday, Sixers' General Manager Elton Brand sat in front of the local media to field questions about the state of the team heading into playoffs. Naturally, everybody wanted to know if Joel Embiid was truly healthy and ready to play. To everybody's surprise, Brand made it clear that there is a possibility that Embiid misses further time, which raised a ton of questions.

Of course, Sixers' Head Coach Brett Brown then had to deal with the wave of questions that Brand raised from the media after Wednesday night's victory. And after answering a few, Brown then grew fed up and requested that nobody asks any further questions regarding Embiid's health. That left everybody with a feeling of uncertainty.

On Friday, the Sixers returned to practice with an abnormal amount of media in attendance. It is playoff time, after all. And as expected, everybody wants to know what the deal with Embiid is. Will he play this weekend? Or is he going to sit out a game or two? Well, it turns out that the Sixers don't have the answer to that and it's not because of the medical staff - it's because the decision is ultimately up to Embiid.

Ever since the All-Star game, Embiid has been dealing with soreness in his knee, which was eventually diagnosed as knee tendinitis. He sat out a couple of weeks before finally returning, but he would go back to missing time after dealing with some more pain. Right now, Embiid is still feeling under one-hundred percent. He will partially practice on Friday, and he's unsure if he will play on Saturday. The Sixers are open to letting him take the court, but the final decision is up to him. Will he play? We'll just have to wait and see.

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