Kansas coach Bill Self says Joel Embiid’s latest foot issue isn’t a setback

Former Kansas star Joel Embiid is facing another potential delay as he recovers from a right foot injury that sidelined him for his entire rookie season with the Philadelphia 76ers.

According to a report on Saturday from Yahoo! Sports, a recent CT scan revealed an “issue in the healing process” of Embiid’s foot. And a story on Monday in the Philadelphia Inquirer ominously reported that Embiid had a “legitimate chance” to miss the entire 2015-16 season.

Later on Monday afternoon, Kansas coach Bill Self sounded a more positive note when speaking of the foot issue, which stems from a stress fracture suffered before last year’s NBA Draft. Self said Embiid recently spoke to KU assistant coach Norm Roberts about his progress.

“He told us he hasn’t reinjured anything,” Self said. ”He’s been working out and everything, and the doctors have told him, based on redoing the MRIs or X-rays or whatever they do, it doesn’t look like it’s made the progress they would hope at this stage, so they’re going to slow him down.

“But in no way, from what Jo has told us, does slow down mean setback. It means they’re going to give it a little more time to heal before they put him in stressful situations.”

Embiid, a native of Cameroon, also faced injury problems during his only season at Kansas, missing the NCAA Tournament after suffering a stress fracture in his back. He declared for the draft after his freshman season and went No. 3 overall to Philadelphia last June.

This story was originally published June 15, 2015 at 8:00 PM with the headline "Kansas coach Bill Self says Joel Embiid’s latest foot issue isn’t a setback."