Is Joel Embiid refusing to play through pain? Not exactly. We think.

Joel Embiid’s soft, right?

He was damaged goods in the fall when he agreed to an extension that will pay him almost $250 million over the next four seasons, and now, cash in hand, he’s not going to play if his left knee hurts ... right?

No. That’s unfair, and it’s probably untrue, since there is little historical evidence to suggest Embiid won’t play hurt. He gets hurt a lot, but he has played through injuries in every season or postseason since 2018.

However, as he endures his latest trial of fragility, Embiid is being cast as a dog, uninterested in doing his job. A thief, stealing money and doing nothing. A punk, unwilling to battle as his teammates fail. A lot of the casual discourse, especially on social media, either implies or outright accuses Embiid of being unable or unwilling to play in pain.

That might be part of the problem, but it is not the entire issue.

» READ MORE: Doctors discuss ‘radical’ surgeries for Joel Embiid that could sideline him for as much as a year

Over the past decade, no one has been more critical of Embiid’s professionalism than I have, whether it’s his bullying nature on the court and off it, his selfishness in deciding to play in the Olympics this past summer while recovering from his latest injury, or his continued poor conditioning in an era when even golfers are counting calories and doing yoga.

But I can’t accuse him of tanking on his team. Not this time. Not given his history.

Embiid on Wednesday missed the 39th of the Sixers’ 58 games this season, almost all of them due to his slow recovery from left knee meniscus surgery performed last February; he also was suspended for three games early this season. This was Embiid’s second surgery on his left knee. He also had meniscus surgery in 2017.

Sixers doctors and experts we spoke with agree that the only way for Embiid to return to competence was not to simply rest and rehab the injury. Once doctors determined rest and rehab had done all it could do, the best course involved Embiid playing in games as often as he could, building strength in and around the joint, toughening bone, making the leg stronger, allowing the body to adjust to its new reality, and letting the big guy gain confidence.

Doctors call this range of recovery a patient’s “envelope of function.” Embiid’s envelope was never going to be as big as it once was. Between the original surgery and the latest surgery, his anticipated stop-and-go recovery, current load-management practices in the NBA, and his age — he’ll be 31 next month — the Sixers say they expected him to play about 60 games this season. He has played 19.

The way things are going, he’ll be lucky if he plays 20.

It’s not because his knee hurts. At least, it’s not just because his knee hurts.

This is not just about pain tolerance. If that were the case, then Embiid could just mainline Toradol like so many NFL and NBA players used to do. With Embiid’s injury history, he’s done it before, and he’s done it quite often, and he’s done it effectively.

» READ MORE: Tracking Joel Embiid's injury history

There has been no new injury, no reinjury, and no aggravation of the current injury. The recovery had just been slow, and now the Sixers admit that it has stopped, and, possibly, regressed. They are considering “radical” solutions such as meniscus replacement, low-dose radiation, or an osteotomy, all of which could require as much as a year for full recovery, and none of which is guaranteed to solve the problem.

“For the average recreational athlete, the success rates [for these radical procedures] are pretty good. But when you have a higher-demand athlete, especially someone who’s over 7-foot tall, you might see a drop-off in that success rate,” said Dr. Fotios Tjoumakaris, a sports medicine surgeon at Rothman Orthopaedics.

So no, it’s not just about pain, outside experts and Sixers doctors agree. It’s about naturally reaching a point at which Embiid is good enough to contribute to the team.

One Sixers insider likened the process to putting a new sole in an old shoe. It can be uncomfortable, and even a little painful, but eventually you get used to it. And while it’s never like the original sole, in that it won’t conform to your foot the way the original manufacturer intended — in this instance, God or genetics or whatever — you’ll still be able to wear it. It’s very rare that a new sole will result in corns and bunions and plantar fasciitis, but that’s where the Sixers stand today.

(OK, not the best analogy, but it wasn’t my analogy.)

What else is it about besides pain management?

It’s also about stability: Can he establish position on the blocks, or while boxing out a rebounder?

It’s also about strength: Can he explode off the floor to dunk or block shots? It’s about bone regrowth.

It’s about mobility: Can he rotate on defense and act as a dominant rim protector, as he has done his entire career?

It’s about endurance: How many minutes per night can Embiid be more effective than, say, veteran reserve Andre Drummond? Fifteen? Twenty? Certainly not 32.4 minutes, his average the last eight seasons.

Right now, he can’t be effective for any minutes. His knee is weak, unstable, and, yes, painful. It continues to swell after games and practices, and no matter how many times the Sixers drain the fluid and no matter how many times they inject platelet-rich plasma, symptoms return.

Embiid exited the Sixers’ game Saturday in the third quarter and did not return. He wasn’t unable to function, and he wasn’t in debilitating pain. He just stunk. For the first time in his MVP, All-Star career, he was benched.

He has not played since. He underwent a new series of tests on the knee Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, said coach Nick Nurse. The results of those new tests have not been made public.

The Sixers do not allow their doctors to discuss player injuries, so we asked Tjoumakaris to explain what likely is going on with Embiid’s knee. However, when presented with Tjoumakaris’ comments, Sixers sources agreed with his explanations and opinions.

“You might recover to where the knee gets more comfortable with a little bit of fluid in it and the muscle doesn’t react so much, and the muscle can maintain strength. Sometimes, you will see patients where the swelling tends to get better over time,” Tjoumakaris explained. “However, when you’ve had prior injuries to your meniscus, whether that be an injury that required surgery, such as a repair, or even meniscectomy, it’s very hard to get the meniscus repaired to where it supplies the maximum shock-absorption that it’s supposed to.”

Hence, swelling.

“What happens now is that when you have less cushion in your knee, that puts more stress on the cartilage and the bone in your knee. One of the body’s protective mechanisms, when it feels more stress in the joint, is to create fluid,” Tjoumakaris said. “That fluid serves two purposes: number one, to lubricate and sort of resolve some of that shock-absorption issue, and secondarily, it sort of tells the person who has the fluid in their knee, ‘Hey, don’t move the knee around as much.’ ”

Embiid is getting that message more loudly, more clearly, and more often than anyone expected. Since October, the Sixers have consulted almost a dozen doctors about Embiid’s left knee. They agreed that Embiid’s prognosis, both short-term and long-term, was positive. He should be able to play some early this season, more late this season, contribute steadily in the postseason, and be productive for the four seasons beyond.

Now, this.

What next? No one knows. The fact that Embiid has now had two surgeries on his cartilage, which generally does not regenerate on its own, complicates the matter.

“The underlying issue is that, whatever cushion Joel has left in his knee, whether that be the remaining meniscus that he has or the amount of cartilage that he has in his knee, it’s just not enough at this point, probably, to allow him for him to adequately shock-absorb in the joint,” Tjoumakaris said. “So, intermittently, his knee will make fluid, when you push the knee to a certain extent.”

Maybe, just maybe, he’s pushing it as hard as he can.