Joel Embiid has returned from his rehab in Qatar and was breaking a sweat while putting up shots after practice Thursday. He recently traveled overseas to the Aspetar facility, where he followed a regimented routine for his foot injury that has Sixers head coach Brett Brown noticing a positive impact on the big man.
“I think he feels good about himself and he should,” Brown said. “He’s put in the work. When I see him out there, you feel it, you see it in his personality and his face.”
According to its website, Aseptar “provides the highest possible medical treatment for sports-related injuries in a state-of-the-art facility, staffed by some of the world’s leading sports medicine practitioners and researchers.” Its services include sports medicine, sports sciences, rehabilitation and surgery. The staff speaks 47 different languages and the Aspetar Team includes 68 nationalities.
“He’s come back from the Middle East where he could be in an amazing situation where he could speak French,” Brown said. “He could be in an environment that he tells me reminded him of Cameroon, that is beyond highly professional around fellow athletes, that the days were very rigid, very monitored, very disciplined. No BS. This is your road map or you’re not welcome here type of atmosphere — boot camp-ish. … We go overboard with diet, we go overboard with sleep, we go overboard with prehab, rehab and just the attention to return to play.”
Embiid put up shots before Wednesday’s game against the Hornets and was working with coaches and Carl Landry long after Sixers practice wrapped Thursday. Each workout session is planned out without going overboard to rush the schedule. He has not appeared in an NBA game since being drafted third overall by the Sixers in 2014.
“It’s very monitored,” Brown said. “It’s very structured. It’s deliberate practice. It needs to be. Any excitement that we see coming back, it can’t be misinterpreted and abused where you do something longer or harder or more of than you should have. There’s a diet. There is a prescribed duration of drills and time and so on that we have to stick to and it is increasing.”
The Sixers were happy to have their teammate with the jovial personality back in Philadelphia. Prior to the Hornets game, one greeted him with an enthusiastic hug at his locker.
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"He comes with a big personality," Brown said. "He’s very, to me, lovable, he’s huggable, he’s great. I think that as he’s gotten older, those sides where he’s frustrated or wants to get back out on the court, those are all true, but I think it’s being tempered more as he’s gotten older and there’s an endearing side of Joel that I think allows our guys, his teammates, to be at times affectionate and certainly young in their greetings and reception toward him."
After practice, they spoke of his positive presence.
“I knew JoJo prior to even before coming here,” said Jahlil Okafor, who got to know Embiid while he was at the University of Kansas. “He’s like a brother to me. I love JoJo. When he’s around, he just picks everybody up. We know he’s doing what he has to do for recovery. It’s great to have him here.”
Seeing Embiid on the court causes the Sixers to look ahead to what the team would look like if he were ready to play.
“Joel is a great individual,” Robert Covington said. “He’s very spirited, he’s very uplifting, he’s a very hard worker. You’ve seen what he’s capable of in small aspects. A lot of people are anxious to see him on the court. We’ve seen what he’s capable of doing this summer so it’s just what he brings to the team, we’re looking forward to it and everything he’s capable of is going to just add more to what we already have and it’s going to make us even more of a threat once we have all of the pieces that we have together and on the court together.”
The Sixers have watched glimpses during Embiid's rehab stints, and can think ahead to the future.
"We all sort of look at him and understand that that’s a real piece to our program," said Brown.