{"id":161762,"date":"2026-04-09T21:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/161762\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T21:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:00:08","slug":"76ers-joel-embiid-undergoes-surgery-for-appendicitis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/161762\/","title":{"rendered":"76ers’ Joel Embiid undergoes surgery for appendicitis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> star center Joel Embiid<\/a> is undergoing emergency surgery in Houston on Thursday after being diagnosed with appendicitis a few hours before the team was set to face the Rockets<\/a> in a pivotal late regular-season clash.<\/p>\n

The team announced Embiid’s surgery a few hours after he was suddenly added to the injury report as being out with an illness ahead of Thursday’s game — one that the Sixers need to win as they fight to avoid the Eastern Conference play-in tournament next week.<\/p>\n

It’s unclear when Embiid would be able to return to the court.<\/p>\n

Embiid, 32, is averaging 26.9 points and 7.7 rebounds in 38 games this season as he has slowly begun to regain his MVP-level form after a lost season a year ago in which he played only 19 ineffective games before being shut down due to ongoing issues with his left knee.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia has dealt with a series of absences from its star players this season, with Paul George<\/a> returning just a couple of weeks ago from a 25-game NBA suspension.<\/p>\n

Entering Thursday’s games, the 76ers (43-36) are one game behind the sixth-place Toronto Raptors<\/a> with three games remaining in the regular season as they try to avoid the postseason play-in tournament.<\/p>\n

The Sixers then have games Friday against Indiana<\/a> and Sunday against Milwaukee<\/a> — teams firmly focused on improving their draft lottery positioning.<\/p>\n

It’s much more likely Philadelphia will ultimately wind up in the play-in tournament, however, with Embiid’s uncertain status moving forward. Next week’s play-in games would take place either Tuesday (for the 7-8 game) or Wednesday (9-10 game) and then Friday (8-9 game).br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philadelphia 76ers star center Joel Embiid is undergoing emergency surgery in Houston on Thursday after being diagnosed with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[72968,5941,1421,4794,139,69,1002,71,70],"class_list":["post-161762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-72968","tag-embiid-joel","tag-espn","tag-nba","tag-news","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}