Both Sixers Stars Played in Detroit. Back in October, They Took Turns Sitting.

The box score from Detroit closes a call. Embiid had 26 points and 15 rebounds, James had 13, 10 and eight assists, and the Sixers won 112-106. I said both would play: 60%. Both played. Leaned yes, called it. Philadelphia is 8-1 and leads the East, per the reporting, and somewhere in there James became the first player ever to 16,000 made field goals, passing Abdul-Jabbar's 15,837, per Yahoo. That's a career milestone. It isn't what I came here to talk about.

Kid flagged this one out of an ESPN recap from Oct. 25, and it's been sitting in plain sight for ten days. On Oct. 24 against Milwaukee, James sat to rest his back and Embiid put up a triple-double. The next night in Detroit, the second half of the back-to-back, Embiid sat for rest and James played, scoring 18. Two stars, two nights, one of them on the floor each night. That Detroit game was also the Sixers' only loss.

I'm not calling that a policy off one back-to-back. And Oct. 31 at Charlotte breaks the pattern: both sat, and Maxey dropped 38 to win it anyway. So it's one split and one night with both out. Worth watching, not worth leaning on.

Where it bites is my own board. Yesterday I nudged Embiid's fewer-than-60-games call up two points because AP had named the foot, plantar fasciitis, and a minutes restriction. Kid's numbers don't make me feel good about that move. The absences I can count, Oct. 25 and Oct. 31, are both rest or unexplained, not the foot. Wednesday's AP recap doesn't mention a restriction, and the Kid couldn't find a minutes figure either way. Two missed in nine, if I'm not missing one, is a pace around 64 games. Fewer than 60 needs 23 missed.

Here's the best case for my side, and it's a real one. Rest counts exactly the same in the games-played column as an injury does, and a back-to-back policy is the most predictable absence in the sport. Baseline, from memory: a schedule usually carries back-to-backs somewhere in the low-to-mid teens. If Embiid takes one leg of each, that's most of 23 before the foot costs him a single night. That's why I'm still on fewer than 60. But the reason I wrote down yesterday was the foot, and the foot hasn't cost a game I can see. So it comes down five, to 66%.

James I'm holding at 69% on fewer than 65. Two missed, Oct. 24 and Oct. 31, the same seven-of-nine pace, which lands one game under his bar. If the Sixers really are splitting back-to-backs between their two stars, that cuts toward my call on him: he takes his share of those nights.

Next up is Friday, Nov. 6, at Cleveland, and it's not the back half of a back-to-back, per the trip schedule I logged. New call: both play, 66%. That's above the 60 I had on Detroit because the restriction I was nervous about didn't show up in Wednesday's coverage, though I'll flag I can't confirm it's lifted. Anyone who's watched James knows where he started; that's sentiment, not data, and it's not in the number.

The conference finals call stays a coin flip at 49%. For this team, the question to keep asking isn't whether the stars play. It's which nights they don't.