Joel Embiid Pushes Columnist Into 76ers Locker Room, Sources Say; NBA to investigate the incident

By David Aldridge, Tony Jones and Sam Amick

Philadelphia 76ers star center Joel Embiid pushed a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist into the Sixers locker room on Saturday night, multiple league sources confirmed The Athletics. The physical altercation occurred after Embiid and the columnist, Marcus Hayes, argued following Philadelphia’s 124-107 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.

Hayes, a longtime columnist for the Inquirer and formerly the Philadelphia Daily News, recently wrote a column that Embiid viewed as personally disparaging to him and his family, which Embiid expressed to reporters after Friday’s practice.

In part, Embiid said he had “done way too much to let this damn city be treated like this.” The column in questionwritten on October 23, brought up Embiid’s son and his brother Arthur, who died in a car accident in 2014 at the age of 13, a tragedy that Embiid has said several times almost caused him to quit basketball. Embiid’s 4-year-old son is named Arthur, after his brother.

Embiid has yet to play a game this season, a game that started with a 1-4 start without Embiid and star forward Paul George, including Saturday’s loss.

Hayes went to the game on Saturday and entered the team’s locker room after the game ended. Embiid sought him out and their conversation quickly deteriorated.

Hayes did not physically respond to Embiid’s push, a team source said.

An NBA spokesperson said Saturday: “We are aware of reports of an incident in the Sixers locker room tonight and are launching an investigation.”

Embiid’s playing status this season has been a constant source of conversation and frustration for the team and the seven-time All-Star, who has been injured every postseason in recent years, a factor that has contributed to the franchise’s failure to emerge to get into the closet. second round of the playoffs during his tenure. Embiid and the 76ers have been working on a potential plan for the center to play in the regular season but play fewer games to try to keep him healthy for the postseason.

Embiid had surgery on his left knee last February, sidelining him for much of the second half of the 2023-24 regular season. He returned for a first-round playoff series against the New York Knicks and was noticeably hampered by the series. The Knicks won it in six games.

But Embiid played for Team USA at the Paris Olympics this summer, serving as the starting center, and appeared healthy. However, during the 76ers’ training camp, minor swelling was discovered in his knee, and Embiid has been on the shelf ever since.

Hayes has written several columns in the past week sharply criticizing Embiid, chiding him for his poor conditioning during the season after playing in the Olympics and criticizing Embiid for his numerous absences over the years.

“The level of contempt Embiid has for his organization, for his industry and especially for the fans who pay him all his money is completely mind-boggling,” Hayes wrote in an Oct. 23 column in the Inquirer. “Because fans buy the tickets, and fans watch TV, and fans buy the products being advertised on TV. Embiid’s part of the bargain is to show up and play basketball. But he doesn’t even bother to be in good shape to fulfill this part of the bargain.

It’s an incredible dereliction of duty. It is completely unacceptable.”

In the first drafts of the column, Hayes wrote this:

“Joel Embiid consistently points to the birth of his son Arthur as the major turning point in his basketball career. He often says he wants to be great to leave a legacy for the boy named after his little brother, who tragically died in a car accident when Embiid was in his first year as a 76er.

That paragraph has been deleted later versions of the column that ran online.

Last Wednesday, after the NBA fined the 76ers $100,000 for what it called “inconsistent” statements from the team about Embiid’s health status, Hayes again criticized Embiid. Hayes suggested that the team offer refunds to fans who purchased tickets in good faith for home games this season, only to find that Embiid would likely miss several games during the year to avoid playing back-to-back games.

“Additionally, it is highly unlikely that Embiid will play in all subsequent home games, even if they are not back-to-backs; after all, he has missed 46 percent of regular-season games since the Sixers drafted him in 2014,” Hayes wrote. “So it is reasonable to assume that he will miss ten home games, none of them due to injury. That is about 25 percent of what every season ticket holder paid.”

On Friday, Hayes again criticized Embiid after Embiid clapped back at the criticism, saying he “did way too much to have this damn city treated like that, so I did way too much.”

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In his Friday columnHayes acknowledged Embiid’s MVP award, as well as his carrying of the franchise, saying Embiid “could possibly become the best player in franchise history. But unlike Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving, Moses Malone and Allen Iverson, to name a few, Embiid’s teams haven’t advanced past the second round of the playoffs. And while Embiid has battled injuries and illnesses in the postseason, he’s not alone. Here’s a thought: Be in better shape when the playoffs are underway and it won’t be that hard to play with any injuries.

The 30-year-old Embiid is in his tenth season with the Sixers, who selected him No. 3 overall in 2014. He missed his first two NBA seasons due to a right foot injury, surgery and a new injury to his foot. But he started to assert himself in his third professional season and hasn’t looked back since. He became the face of the controversial rebuilding plan the Sixers undertook that became known as “The Process.”

In eight seasons, Embiid averaged 27.9 points, 11.2 rebounds and 3.6 assists in 433 regular season games. But he has been plagued by lower-body injuries throughout his career, many of which occurred late in the regular seasons or in playoff series.

After the Sixers made public comments about their plan to hold Embiid out of back-to-back games this season and then sit him out for a nationally televised game against Milwaukee on Oct. 23, the NBA launched an investigation that ultimately confirmed concerns about his left knee.

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The NBA is fining the 76ers for misrepresenting statements about Embiid’s absence

Had the league discovered that Embiid was in fact healthy and that the Sixers had decided to prioritize the playoffs while routinely resting him during the regular season, the league’s hammer certainly would have fallen hard. But league sources told it The Athletics that Embiid’s left knee, in the eyes of the NBA and the Sixers, was unstable enough that there were concerns about further damage that would be done had he played in these opening games of the regular season.

The league still fined the 76ers $100,000, but this was due to the public statements.

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(Photo: Justin Casterline/Getty Images)