Joel Embiid misses practice due to illness; Steve Kerr ‘confident’ he’ll be ready Sunday
Both Joel Embiid and Anthony Davis have missed time this week as Team USA readies for their Olympics opener against Nikola Jokic and Serbia on Sunday.
“I’m American, man.”
~ Joel Embiid at the opening ceremonies pic.twitter.com/2bhigTmFQu
— Josh Reynolds (@JoshReynolds24) July 26, 2024
And also keeping things light with his accessory game:
“I look good in everything.”
-Joel Embiid pic.twitter.com/3oggALUwPH
— Lauren Rosen (@LaurenMRosen) July 26, 2024
Of course, with anything even tangentially Philadelphia sports-related, good times have to be swiftly brought back down to earth. We received this bummer of a headline from ESPN’s Brian Windhorst on Saturday morning:
Joel Embiid misses practice with illness but Team USA coach Steve Kerr hopeful he’ll have entire team for Olympic opener against Serbia tomorrow. Including Kevin Durant, who practiced for third straight day: https://t.co/BZE4PqRpzJ
— Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) July 27, 2024
Social media got its jokes off right away. Embiid is ducking Nikola Jokic again! He shouldn’t be starting over Anthony Davis anyway!
However, the actual article from Windhorst provides more context, and things don’t appear to be that concerning for Team USA and the Sixers big man:
“Joel Embiid missed practice Saturday with an illness, while coach Steve Kerr said that Anthony Davis had missed practice time over the past several days with illness just ahead of the national team’s opener against Nikola Jokic and Serbia on Sunday.
Kerr, however, isn’t worried anyone will be forced to miss the game, as Davis was able to practice Saturday.
“I’m confident we’ll have everybody ready [Sunday],” Kerr said.”
It seems like there’s a bug going around the team. I imagine being out on a boat in the rain didn’t help matters much. Regardless, it looks like we’ll get to see Embiid vs. Jokic: Official International Edition after all. Stay tuned.
