Joel Embiid injury could have Celtics bowing out of Kevin Love sweepstakes

Nobody wants to draft a guy just to do this,
except maybe the Celtics?

Hey, so did you hear that top prospect Joel Embiid now has a serious foot injury?


A broken foot. What a doozie. Especially exactly one week before the NBA draft.

So needless to say, this could have some massive implications. How massive? Well, remember that Kevin Love stuff we've been talking about for forever?



Is it worth it to say goodbye to (maybe) Kevin Love in order to draft a guy that's now had three injuries while playing basketball for just four years? For what it's worth, Austin Ainge spoke on the very topic earlier today, though of course didn't tell us much.

Via Jay King, MassLive.com:
“Those are always concerns, especially when it’s a player like that (Embiid) that we won’t be able to have in to evaluate to really get the risks from our medical staff. There’s a lot of guesswork involved, but you’re always trying to weigh short term and long term. We try to think long term that if a guy has to miss a couple months, that shouldn’t deter us from taking him if he’s going to be the best player long term.

"We’ve had some success with that with Avery (Bradley) and (Jared Sullinger) in the draft, sliding to us. Even Leon Powe slid all the way late. Unfortunately Leon’s knees gave out eventually but we got a couple good years out of him. There can be some value there but there’s always risk.”

If it were up to Embiid's camp though, his agent would prefer for him to fall all the way to number 6 or 7 if he slips out of that top spot, as he most assuredly will with this news.



If it were an ideal world where you were allowed to choose such things, would you rather have Kevin Love and no Sully etc. or Joel Embiid and all the assets? Comment.

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