It's officially Philadelphia 76ers season… our first injury drama of 2024-25!

The Sixers' highly anticipated star duo of Joel Embiid and Paul George will both miss the team's season opener on Wednesday night against the Milwaukee Bucks. Embiid is also out for Friday and will be re-evaluated this weekend, according to the team.

Rookie Jared McCain, who suffered a bruised lung after a bad fall against the Nets last Wednesday, is making good progress. The team will determine its status on Tuesday evening.

The team also said George is recovering well after suffering a bone bruise in his left knee during a preseason contest on Oct. 14. His return to play will be assessed later in the week. This all makes sense and is honestly what most people expected from the team today.

However, for one fan, the Embiid update is a bit more annoying due to the lack of clear information. The Sixers center competed for Team USA in the Paris Olympics last summer, with the final against France taking place on August 10. In recent weeks, there have been announcements from the team and coach Nick Nurse that the Sixers were cautious and slow to prepare for the season, so he would not participate in preseason competition. Okay, sure. Then Embiid told ESPN that if he had to guess, he “would probably never play back-to-back games for the rest of his career.” That honestly makes sense. Every part of this new normal for the Embiid franchise, from Daryl Morey to Nurse, has been out in the open in recent weeks.

But the confirmation that he has missed not just the season opener but already the first two games of the season is a bit worrying. The team says he is “responding well to his individual plan and is expected to increase his return to game activities, including scrimming, this week.” All well and good, but is he injured or not? If he's not injured, why hasn't he tested himself over the last week or so to be ready for opening night? If that's the case, it makes sense to avoid participating in preseason contests or forcing back-to-backs in the future keep A healthy man not playing regular season games sends the message that he is not healthy first of all. So what exactly is going on?

I don't expect to ever get all the information about a player from a team. There is of course a strategy as to what information you reveal. But I understand that the fans reading this right now are scratching their heads and wondering what on earth is going on behind closed doors with the Sixers.

The Sixers will face the Bucks without Embiid and George on Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. ET.