The Sixers ridiculously claim that Joel Embiid's absence is part of the plan

The thing about the Sixers' unique brand of ridiculousness is that they usually introduce it gradually. That's an important point to consider as you reflect on the ridiculousness on display Tuesday afternoon. As crazy as the Sixers are — and they are pretty crazy — they typically wait at least a month or two before getting to a point that most functioning organizations would consider frivolous. In fact, their ability to establish this introductory period of sanity each year is the biggest factor in the relevance they have maintained seven years into the most single-minded journey to nowhere in history.

The point is that crazy feels a lot crazier when you go completely crazy from the jump, rather than establishing a baseline of normality and then steadily deviating from it. That's exactly what the Sixers did on Tuesday afternoon when they 1) announced that their star center, along with their star forward, would not be participating in the first home game of the season, and then 2) reacted with surprise that people wouldn't just accept that as completely normal and unremarkable turn of events.

“You evaluate them over time here,” Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said. “As soon as we can get them out there and get them scrimmaged and up to speed, then we’ll get them in.”

Oh, okay, cool. Keep us updated. We'll be the suckers sitting in the seats you sold us and claiming that Joel Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey would be playing their first game together heading into the long-awaited NBA Finals.

Babe, get my KJ Martin jersey! Everything is going according to plan!

Embiid is obviously the key figure here. George will not be in the lineup for Wednesday's season opener against the Bucks after suffering a hyperextended knee injury in a preseason game against the Hawks. That makes perfect sense. As for Embiid? Apparently everything is fine. He just doesn't play. He also won't play for the rest of the opening week.

“Look, I think we’re really smart and sticking with the plan with Joel,” Nurse said. “PG not playing was certainly not part of the plan. He got injured in the game, so we're taking care of it now. Absolutely, I respect how good both conferences are… going out and winning ballgames is going to be a challenge, not just for us, but for everyone every night. We’ve got some depth, we’ve got some experience and we’ve got some good players and we’ll go out there and see what we look like.”

Now, to be fair to the Sixers, there's really nothing remarkable about Embiid missing a game under mysterious circumstances. Notably, Embiid will miss the first game of the season. And not just any season, but a season in which he and George are expected to give the Sixers their best chance at an NBA Finals since the early 2000s. But what's truly remarkable about this is that the Sixers didn't feel the need to provide a coherent explanation for why Embiid wasn't playing.

In doing so, they broke with their long October tradition of at least pretending that this year would be different than all the others. There have been years where Embiid missed three of the first six games (2019-20), eight of the first 20 (2022-23) or almost all of November (2021-22). But he's always there for Game 1 and brings with him the promise that everything might actually go according to plan.

Despite all the ups and downs of the last seven years, despite all the familiarity that comes at some point, the Sixers have always managed to start the season the same way most regular NBA organizations do. You know, with hope. Fall comes and everyone jumps in the pot and convinces themselves that the water feels really good. If the star center misses a game, it's just a game until he doesn't. From this point on it doesn't matter anymore because the time when he comes back is getting closer and closer. And he will return. Trust us. Just don't ask us when. Whenever he does, the Sixers will return to the team that was promised, the team that you've already seen. And when the time comes, it's the Eastern Conference semifinals and then it's summer. Anyway, thank you for all your support. See you next year.

So maybe Tuesday afternoon was our fault. Maybe we spent so many years putting up with the ridiculousness that the Sixers assumed we would become co-conspirators in it. Maybe they really thought they could put on the most anticipated season opener of the era without the two players most responsible for that anticipation, and anyone with tickets would simply shrug their shoulders. Maybe they really thought everyone would ignore two seemingly incompatible statements: that Embiid wouldn't play and that it was all part of the plan.

” READ MORE: The Sixers have big plans for the 2024-25 season — but they will make sacrifices along the way

The plan.

The nurse repeated that phrase no fewer than five times Tuesday afternoon as she tried to answer all the questions any reasonable person would ask.

Is everything OK with Embiid's surgically repaired knee?

Did you ever have a setback while participating in the training camp?

Is he having a hard time recovering from competing in the Olympics?

Did he register as a conscientious objector?

“There were no setbacks,” Nurse said. “He is very active again. He has lost some weight. He’s on the court, etc. We’re just making sure we stick to our plan of getting him to a really, really good spot before we let him play live.”

To be clear, none of this is the nurse's fault. He just happened to be the guy the Sixers trotted out there to explain something that apparently has no explanation. This is exactly where the organizational failure lies.

The problem isn't that Embiid isn't ready more than five months after he played a full playoff series, more than two months after he played a full Olympics and more than three weeks after the Sixers started , to play in the season-opening training camp, where he (allegedly) took part in everything but live scrimmages. The problem is that the Sixers don't feel like they owe their paying customers an honest attempt at disclosure.

For 10 minutes Tuesday, reporters tried to alert Nurse to the official explanation for Embiid's absence. The tenor of the back and forth was more incredulous than controversial.

“That gets him where he needs to be to get on the court,” Nurse said.

But Why?

Assuming everyone involved is acting rationally, there's clearly a reasonable explanation as to why Embiid isn't where he needs to be to get on the court right now.

” READ MORE: Call him Dr. P: Paul George has a recipe for a healthy Joel Embiid

One possible explanation is that there is an acute problem in his surgically repaired left knee. He's just not healthy enough to play. All available evidence suggests that this is not the case. The knee didn't appear to be limiting Embiid on Tuesday as he went through half-court drills with George and a group of assistant coaches after practice. His teammates have been talking as if his return is imminent, based on their first-hand observations of how he moves.

A second possible explanation is that Embiid feels he is not at his best and that his standards in that regard are high given the vulnerability of his knee. Most summers he has four months to rest, recover and get back into shape before the start of the next season. This year he had half of that thanks to the Olympics.

What doesn't make sense is why the Sixers wouldn't just say that. If they allow Embiid to dictate the flow of information, then perhaps the employee-employer relationship should be reevaluated, especially after the decision to give him a three-year contract extension worth $193 million.

Explanations only work if they make sense. If Embiid misses the season opener and the Sixers simply stick to their plan and nothing has changed in that plan since it was implemented, then the logical conclusion is that the plan all along was for him to miss the season opener.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” the nurse said. “He’s in practice. He looks good. He's making progress. He's not quite finished yet. He will be ready soon. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

That's what defines us all.

The Sixers open their season on Wednesday night against the Milwaukee Bucks at the Wells Fargo Center. Join Keith Pompey and Gina Mizell at 3 p.m discoverer.com/gamedaycentral as they preview the game and the upcoming season.