Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images Big men and knees don’t always go well together, but one former star paved the way for how to deal with it that a current one could learn from. Prime Tim Duncan was and still is a role model for many basketball players around the world. He was the epitome of fundamentals and showed that you didn’t have to be a walking highlight real or trash-talker to be a winner. He led with his play on the court and brought five championships to a small-market team while never letting his ego get in the way. However, in some ways, Duncan may end up being an even bigger role model for players who are past their primes. He may not have been as gifted of an athlete or as impressive as 40-year-old LeBron James looks right now, but Duncan is known for his career longevity, playing in 19 seasons despite coming into the league after four years in college and having notable knee issues in the last quarter of his career. It all started after the 2010-11 season, when after a red-hot regular season, the top seeded Spurs hobbled through a first round upset to the 8th seed Memphis Grizzlies. It’s easy to point a lot of the blame of that series towards Manu Ginobili’s freshly-broken elbow (which he admirably played through) or Gregg Popovich’s confounding decision to stick with Dejuan Blair over rookie center Tiago Splitter against Memphis’ backcourt of Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, but Duncan wasn’t himself either. He turned 35 during those playoffs, and with age comes flair-ups from old injuries — in this case, a torn meniscus from 2000. Instead of pointing fingers for the massive upset or just accepting he was approaching the end, Duncan reformed himself. He changed his diet, lost weight to take pressure off his knees, and accepted that he would need to wear a special brace for the rest of his career. None of it was fun, but he was determined enough to keep playing and keep winning that he did what was necessary. The reward was another championship in 2014 before retiring two years later, which included toughing it out for one more season than he planned since it meant the Spurs got LaMarcus Aldridge. Timmy always put his team ahead of himself. Fast forward ten years, and there’s a new era of big men dominating, especially Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid. They both have MVP’s to their name, and their match-ups are highly anticipated — when they actually happen which isn’t often enough because the former never seems to be available. Embiid’s career has always been injury-riddled. He ended up missing his first two seasons from 2014-2016 during “The Process” with a foot injury that didn’t heal right after one year and required surgery to fix. (Random fact: this means he never actually matched up against Duncan.) He finally made his NBA debut in the 2016-17 season, but even then he only played in 31 games after suffering the same injury as young Duncan did early in his career: a torn meniscus. However, despite still going on to become a perineal All Star himself, this is where Embiid and Duncan’s career paths deviate. Despite the early setback, Duncan was an iron man and never missed games unless absolutely necessary, and when Pop brought player management along in his twilight years, he fought it the best he could. By contrast, Embiid is entering his 8th season at just 30 years old — still relatively young and what should be considered his prime — having only appeared in an average of 54 games per season. 2021-2023 was his best stretch, where he appeared in 66 and 68 games in consecutive seasons while winning his only MVP title in 2023, but those are also the only seasons he would have met the new 65-game threshold that the NBA set for such awards in no small part thanks to Embiid’s (among others) lack of games played. You can’t blame Embiid too much for being injury prone — some players are just more unfortunate than others — but there’s an argument to be made that he could do more to take better care of himself. Often clocking in at 280 pounds or more, he has been considered overweight and out of shape most of his career, leading to missed games in the regular season and exhaustion in the playoffs, when he had to play in every game. Not only does his weight put more pressure on his knees, but his “floppy” style of play — constantly diving or falling to draw foul calls — doesn’t help either. Now, it’s a new season, and Embiid is already facing new scrutiny. He somehow wasn’t ready to play in the 76ers season opener last night, which they lost to the Milwaukee Bucks, and won’t be ready until at least next week. This has led to many questions and even a potential investigation by the league to see if he’s breaking any player participation policies. Yes, he suffered yet another injury last season and only appeared in 38 games, but he returned for the playoffs and played for Team USA at the Olympics. Sixers coach Nick Nurse has confirmed Embiid doesn’t have a new injury; he just flat out isn’t ready to go. On top of that, Embiid himself also doesn’t seem too concerned about being there for his team, nonchalantly admitting last week he may never play in a back-to-back again. Whether back-to-backs should still be a thing is another story, but again, he’s only 30, and every other player in the league has to deal with them as well. Not only that, but amidst all the lack of participation, he will still tell you he’s the best player in the league and will complain if he doesn’t win MVP. All things considered, it feels like he would prefer the league conform to him instead of the other way around. While he has reportedly lost “20-30” pounds this offseason, that means he has been exercising hard in the last couple of months and should be in good enough shape to play, right? His plan seems to be to just sit out half of the regular season games and hope he has enough “energy” left to make a championship run in the playoffs, but then that begs the question: will not playing in many games actually accomplish that feat? It seems more likely he will just be even less prepared for the grind of the playoffs. Embiid is the third highest paid player in the league, so not only is he doing a disservice to his teammates by taking his time coming back and taking games off, but he’s not living up to the contract he signed, and that is likely why the NBA is investigating his lack of participation. The reality is if Embiid truly wanted to, he could get himself in better shape and ready for the full grind of an NBA season. If he ever decides he’s ready to put in that work, his first phone call should be to one of the greatest big men of all time, who showed that longevity can be achieved with the proper training, preparation and care. Tim Duncan had that winning, unselfish mindset that he would do anything to help his team, city and teammates win. If Embiid ever reaches that mindset too, he should know who to call.