Sixers Injury Update...

We've got a Sixers injury update, plus we have to preview a pair of games this weekend specifically focusing on tonight's matchup against the Milwaukee Bucks and how these injuries are going to potentially impact all of it. What's going on, everybody? Christian Pedersen back with another episode of Sixers Digest, the show that is assuming we're going to finally see LeBaron filing this weekend. Plus, a Demba Ba is going to get his chance to be this. It's going to be... Every game is the biggest game of the season because it's a great year, and right now it seems like no matter what, these things are dramatic as heck. But I think this could actually be so far, maybe not the biggest weekend of the season, but the most telling because it's the first weekend where we're going to have a back-to-back. And coming off of two games where we have seen our starters all play a ton of minutes, we have, like I said, an injury update. The first one being that LeBron James is not going to be playing against the Milwaukee Bucks tonight. The technical reason being listed is his lower back pain or back management. which I think translates to old and unexpected, especially given the amount of minutes that he has been playing. But looking at the rest of this, Dom Barlow, Taco Fall, still a week away from their injuries being re-evaluated, so they're not going to be playing for sure this weekend. Dean Wade, still questionable. I don't know what the thought process is on a game where you have LeBron out. If you're just like, hey, Dean, we need you. Get your ass out there for a couple of minutes. But I also want to pair this with the discussion from Joel Embiid saying that he is going to be playing one of them. Now, it had been kind of, I think, universally discussed by me and Sean this offseason as being that he would miss the second of the back-to-backs. But looking at the combo of games this weekend, it starts with Milwaukee, kind of a rudderless, hapless Milwaukee Bucks, not to disrespect Tyler Herro and Kyle Kuzma. But, you know, they're not the Giannis Bucks. And then it's going to be Detroit and Cade Cunningham and then boys, who we will have a full preview of that tomorrow. But that's a significantly better team. So I would be curious if that doesn't then mean that the load management with Embiid is going to happen tonight against the Bucks. But if you pair Embiid and LeBron both having a load management night, even if it's against a team that is, like I said, the lesser of the two i don't know how to i don't want to disrespect the bucks in a way that gives not they're going to watch this for post-report material but i just want to speak it into existence of being like oh we can sit our whole starting five and cakewalk through this or oh we can just rely on Max, it's still an NBA team etc etc etc but it will be interesting to see if Nick Nurse decides to I I think you could make the argument that yeah it would be the better thing to have them both sit so that they can both be healthy and available to take on Detroit but if you have both of them sitting in a situation where Dean Wade is also out in recovering and we've only seen this really be a nine-man rotation with one of those nine being Jabari Walker averaging three and a half minutes a game that means we're gonna have to see a ton of Adem Bona and that I would assume finally means we're gonna see LeBron finally even though LeBron doesn't really answer the big man interior presence type of like it doesn't he does not I'm not saying that he fills LeBron and Embiid's shoes I'm playing on the inside but just the physical amount of minutes that are needed to be filled with having two of your starting five out and then you slide KCP in to uh to LeBron's spot you slide Adem Bona into Embiid's spot leaves you with two guys off the bench you gotta you gotta dip more into Jabari Walker which great cool like I'm down to see how this looks against the Bucks as like an existential experiment kind of question because we got to see it at some point and if you pull up the numbers which I encourage everyone to go to Digest Sport dot com our coders are working their butts off to make all of this stuff better and cooler every day the numbers pan out that even though i was talking yesterday about how the Sixers have not played necessarily all that well this season statistically speaking we are a better team than the Bucks in just about everything trailing behind them a little bit in average points per game by uh like just a you know a wee amount and uh assists you go to the second row of stats the shooting percentage that's what i talked about how we haven't like that's what i'm saying we haven't been shooting well so yeah great they're a little bit better than us i still think that this matches up very favorably we would we would cakewalk this if it was the full starting five if it's Embiid indeed i still think it's a relatively easy win if this is though going to be a game where we're going to not have everybody not that i'm worried and not that i'm saying that like oh like this is a trap game but it just this is the reality of what we signed up for and it makes this game go from being okay easy peasy we're three and oh vibes are chilling to we gotta we gotta make sure we have more of that dog in us factor that we had talked about the previous couple of games where it's like down big on the road or down big at home down on the road how do they fight through this now it's we're at home we've got an easier game but we've got less of our talent out there and we've got to make these new rotations work and we've got to see how the team overcomes just not having that like x factor on the court of we've got a healthy Embiid we've got LeBron out there sometimes it's i feel like sometimes it hasn't even just been that LeBron is like out there making plays, it's just that confidence blanket of like the GOATs out there with us, let's just he can calm things down so Maxi on a good one, JB got probably more clearance and freedom to do his jazz hands and be himself out there with the guys missing, can this be the VJ Edgecombe steps up and goes like, well I would like to see if if this is going to be a night where these guys are going to be out, is this going to be VJ's first 20 point game? Does he answer the bell and have a more increased role, like I said I want to see if this is going to be the first debut for LeBaron, this feels like as good of a spot as we're ever going to get for him to make his NBA debut, even if it's going to be he fills Jabari Walker's shoes of being the three minutes a night guy, I still feel like you can't ask for a more perfectly lined up situation than being at home against the 0 and two Bucks and having two of your guys out so you need minutes to be filled, does this mean Justin Edwards, like is this going to be Nick Nurse just doing like a holistically entirely different vibe is this going to be 30 plus minutes again from those, from Maxi, Brown and Edgecombe and then KCP and Simons still get 30 minutes and Adem Bona is still at, like do they just go incredibly small ball for a absolute ton of the game, I am unsure because this is for right now uncharted territories once we're done with this back-to-back we'll have I think a much better picture being four games in obviously with the total sample size but having our first back-to-back out of the way even though we have the fewest of them in the NBA this season it'll let us know kind of like we had talked about this all off season what's this going to look like we know there's going to be Embiid load management oh there's going to be LeBron load management and you can only hypothetical something so many times before it's just time to actually see it in person so curious to see all those things curious what you guys think the approach is going to be tonight excited to watch the game i'll be back with a post game video so that's why i say like subscribe comment share follow until next time talk to you guys soon go Sixers