Significant injuries are mounting a week into the NBA season. And the Sixers haven’t been spared.
Star players such as Anthony Edwards and Jalen Williams — along with Sixers reserve center Ariel Hukporti — have already suffered injuries expected to keep them sidelined for weeks or months.
INDIANAPOLIS — Tyrese Maxey sent a text message to Tyrese Haliburton and Anthony Edwards, offering well wishes following their recent injury diagnoses.
“I hate seeing guys hurt,” Maxey said Wednesday night. “[I told] them I was praying for them and I want to see them play.”
The absence of Haliburton — the Indiana Pacers’ star point guard who, in his early days back from Achilles surgery, suffered a strained hamstring — along with starting center Ivica Zubac (sprained ankle) took some sizzle out of their early-season matchup against the 76ers. They are two names already on a lengthy list of prominent players expected to miss notable time with injuries barely a week into the 2026-27 NBA season.
“Sometimes you simply can’t stay out of harm’s way,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said during his news conference before the Sixers’ 114-109 win at Gainbridge Filedhouse. “But I can guarantee you that every team is looking into it and studying it as best they can.”
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The most gruesome injury thus far was All-Star Oklahoma City Thunder forward Jalen Williams’ fractured fibula and dislocated left ankle sustained Sunday night, which ends his season and begins a monthslong recovery process. Thunder teammate Cason Wallace also has a torn labrum in his shoulder and is expected to miss several months.
The list continues with Edwards, the Minnesota Timberwolves four-time All-Star guard who is expected to be sidelined for two months following arthroscopic knee surgery. And Orlando Magic All-Star Paolo Banchero, who is out for at least a month with a high ankle sprain. And Toronto Raptors perennial All-Star Kawhi Leonard, whom ESPN reported will miss “weeks” with knee swelling. And Utah Jazz big man Jaren Jackson Jr. (six weeks, MCL). And Detroit Pistons All-NBA big man Jalen Duren (hamstring, two weeks). And even maligned former Sixer Ben Simmons, whose attempted NBA comeback with the Sacramento Kings was derailed by a preseason Achilles tear.
The Sixers also have not been immune to the rash of injuries, with reserve big man Ariel Hukporti also suffering a ruptured Achilles in his new team’s preseason opener. The former Knicks center was spotted using a scooter to maneuver around the practice facility earlier this week and on ring night when the Sixers kicked off their season at Madison Square Garden.
Keerthika Uthayakumar, a master at compiling and releasing NBA statistical information on the internet, posted Wednesday evening that 79 players — approximately 15% of the league — were listed with an injury or illness on the 2:30 p.m. injury report for that night’s games.
Injuries — and how to curtail them — have become a topic of NBA conversation seemingly every few months. They have turned into debates about load management, the 82-game schedule, and style of play across the sport’s eras.
At the end of last season, they revolved around some of the league’s best players falling short of the 65-game benchmark to be eligible for postseason awards and All-NBA selection. Those honors not only shape individual legacies and the overall history of the game, but sometimes come with contract implications. That rule, which was collectively bargained by the National Basketball Players Association and the league’s owners, was implemented for the 2023-24 season to try to limit load management and encourage star players to suit up more frequently. It runs in tandem with the player participation policy, which fines teams for sitting star players during nationally televised and NBA Cup games.
When asked why injuries could already be mounting, Carlisle reiterated that “the game is fast and not slowing down.” He also referenced a “school of thought” that offseason player workouts with personal trainers might need to “evolve to the way the game is played now.”
“It’s a running and speed game,” said Carlisle, who has been playing and coaching in the NBA since the 1980s. “It’s a different kind of conditioning than it’s ever been.”
Maxey, who last season led the NBA in minutes per game, reiterated on Wednesday the importance of taking care of his body but conceded “it’s the NBA, man. It’s a grueling season. … And being healthy is part of being a good team.”
Sixers coach Nick Nurse, who was part of the Raptors’ initial load-managing philosophy with Leonard on the way to winning the 2019 NBA title, also has dealt with a bevy of injuries to key players in his three-plus seasons with the Sixers. Now, he is managing the health of LeBron James, who is still an excellent player but will turn 42 years old in December, and Joel Embiid, the former NBA Most Valuable Player whose career has been littered with injuries including multiple knee surgeries.
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Both players only participated in one game of the Sixers’ back-to-back last weekend. They have another coming up Friday and Saturday, first a marquee NBA Cup group play matchup against the New York Knicks before a road date at the Charlotte Hornets. Embiid played a team-high 39 minutes against the Pacers — in a close game with limited backup center options because of, you guessed it, injuries — but acknowledged “that’s not going to last” as a realistic workload for him throughout a season during which the revamped Sixers hope to contend for a championship.
Nurse called fixing the injury issue “maybe not my exact expertise or lane to think about,” But the coach added that the Sixers’ staff — including the medical and training teams, along with the front office — is “always trying to find the right balance between rest and work, both physically and mentally.”
“[You] always just keep trying to keep the best pulse you can on that,” Nurse said.
And perhaps, in Embiid’s words, turn to trusting a higher power to keep his body intact.
“It’s all up to God,” he said when asked about how to limit injuries across the league. “All we’ve got to do is pray.”
