Philadelphia 76ers’ center Joel Embiid seemed confident in returning soon, but he’s beginning to worry everybody.

Has ‘knee soreness’ ever taken this long to go away? What is going on? Apparently, before the All-Star festivities even began, Sixers’ Joel Embiid was dealing with a sore knee. Ever since he played in his second All-Star game a few weeks back, Embiid hasn’t returned to the court with the Philadelphia 76ers, despite only being ruled out a week.

This feels like a classic case of “nobody knows what’s going on within the Sixers coaching and medical staff.” It’s been a while since we’ve felt like this and we sure didn’t miss it. Embiid is no stranger to mysterious injuries. Especially when it comes to his knee, which makes this whole ideal so sketchy. Apparently, Embiid, not the Sixers, is holding Embiid out.

As his knee is sore, he feels like he should sit out, so he doesn’t do any further damage to himself. Kudos on that decision, but how long is this going to last? First, it was a week. Now we’re wrapping up the third week without him, and it’s starting to get very concerning.

When can we expect a return?

Joel Embiid did not travel with the team to Houston and has continued to work out in Camden to continue prepping for return. Team source says they believe he has made good progress and did not rule out return Sunday vs. Indiana

— Kyle Neubeck (@KyleNeubeck) March 7, 2019

According to PhillyVoice’s Kyle Neubeck, Embiid wouldn’t rule out a return this upcoming Sunday. Looking at recent history, he didn’t rule out a return for the last few games either and ended up missing them with Friday’s game included. At this point, it’s getting quite difficult to trust what’s going on with Embiid.

Although I don’t believe that his decision to take this time off will alter the Sixers’ chances of making the playoffs, it’s undoubtedly killing some much-needed time together on the court with the new guys.

Brett Brown couldn’t stress enough how important it is for everybody to work together on building a chemistry through these last stretches of games. And without Embiid on the floor, there’s no way they can experiment with that, which could really affect the Sixers heading into the playoffs this year.

Without Embiid, the Sixers aren’t much better than anybody. Even with Embiid, the struggle against top-tier teams of the East. This team needs to figure out everything quickly before it’s too late.