Joel Embiid’s dust-up reveals the pressure he and the Sixers are under
Editor’s note: The NBA announced Tuesday afternoon that it has suspended Joel Embiid for three games for pushing a Philadelphia columnist on Saturday night.
PHOENIX — Let’s move past the latest controversy involving Joel Embiid.
When the Philadelphia 76ers big man made the inexcusable decision Saturday night to get physical with Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Marcus Hayes in the locker room, threatening and pushing him in response to a column in which the writer called out the names of Embiid’s late brother and young son While he criticized the big man’s conditioning and inability to stay on the ground, it was just a symptom of the much larger problem in Philly. And while the incident has certainly exacerbated the Sixers’ early season woes, with Embiid yet to play due to ongoing issues with his left knee and his absence now being compounded by the prospect of him being suspended by the NBA during their 1- 5-start, the real cause of all this is the pressure that has been building around Embiid for over a decade.
It tends to burst pipes, as they say, and the dust in the locker room was a good sign that all those years of scrutiny are reaching the 30-year-old former MVP these days.
Ever since the Sixers took him No. 3 overall in the 2014 NBA Draft just six days after he underwent surgery to repair a right foot injury that would ultimately cost him the first two seasons of his career, the brutal reality of working in the Embiid business It has always been the case that it is a calculated risk of the highest order. Just ask the five front office heads and three head coaches who have been on board with the Sixers during his time in the league.
Then as now, anything short of a genuine title fight and a steady stream of Embiid greatness was bound to inspire fear and contempt in the city that boasted famously demanding Sixers fans. But the heavy expectations that matter even more to him, and which loom so large again after he was signed to a three-year, $192 million extension in late September, are the expectations that come from the franchise that employs him.
He knows Philly wouldn’t have gotten off to this atrocious start had he been there, with Monday night’s final loss to Phoenix (118-116) perhaps the most painful as the Suns spoiled his new player’s long-awaited regular-season debut. co-star, Paul George.
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He knows the Sixers don’t want to pour champagne without him in June, and that the journey from here to there has proven so problematic for him.
The hope, as team sources shared Monday, is that Embiid can play as soon as Wednesday’s game against the LA Clippers (unless he is suspended by then). He recently began practicing in five-on-five action, trained extensively for the game against the Suns and is expected to participate in individual workouts Tuesday in Los Angeles that will set the stage for what comes next. Barring some setback, it seems likely that an end is in sight soon.
As evidenced by the aforementioned contract extension, the Sixers still believe they can somehow steer this wayward ship to the land of Larry O’Brien trophies. There is internal confidence that Embiid’s left knee issue can be successfully addressed in the coming months. But there’s also a sober recognition that the opposite could also be true: that his body could fail him again and the Sixers will once again fall short of their championship dreams. Tough questions about what it all means would inevitably follow as that scenario unfolds.
Regardless of what comes next, the past few weeks have been a hellish series of Sixers headlines for the ages. Embiid’s health was the focus of an NBA investigation late last month (which resulted in a $100,000 fine), and his incident with Hayes led to another incident that is still ongoing. It’s never good when the NBA gods have to play the role of both doctor and detective with one team in such a short period of time.
As for Embiid’s availability and the latest round of media/fan pressure being placed on him to play, team sources say this time was made all the more difficult because the Sixers truly believed he would be ready at the start of the regular season season. October 23. That’s why they publicly made so many rose-colored glasses statements about his health, obscuring the truth about the left knee issue that the league ultimately deemed a legitimate concern. In doing so, they respected Embiid’s well-known wish to be as private as possible when it came to his health.
But those statements were inconsistent with the Sixers’ other goal, their plan to avoid back-to-backs for Embiid. And George, which was detailed in an ESPN story mid-October and who broke the league’s unofficial rule not to discredit the importance of the regular season, just a year removed from the start of a massive new media rights deal. And when Embiid couldn’t compete in the nationally televised opener, the jig was up. So the fine.
Yet the past few months have been so confusing when it comes to the truth about Embiid’s physical status. On the one hand, league sources say his left knee was not a concern, or even a topic of discussion, among Team USA stakeholders during the national team’s run to Olympic gold in France — even if, according to team sources, the left knee was managed and monitored on their side during that time.
Embiid had his fits and starts on the floor, of course, but Embiid ultimately came out huge in the Americans’ epic comeback win over Serbia in the semifinals and accomplished what he went there to do. Moreover, league sources say, he never missed a practice or shootaround during the five-week stretch from the team’s training camp in Las Vegas in early July to the championship game against France on Aug. 10. He even battled through an illness in the competition. group play opener against Serbia on July 28, traveling separately from the team en route from Paris to Lille and participating despite team leaders making it clear he was well within his right to rest.
If only the NBA calendar was this compact.
As we all saw the hard way on Jan. 30, when Embiid seemed to push back against public pressure by playing against Golden State and found himself needing surgery on his left knee. a week laterthis schedule is a completely different kind of grind. The memory of that fateful night, when he worked so awkwardly early on before being injured when Jonathan Kuminga fell on his knee, is the kind of mental hurdle that team sources believe plays a role in his reluctance to return here. There was a lesson learned then that still needs to be heeded now, a reality that shaming Embiid into playing just isn’t the right thing to do. No matter how great the frustration of the fans in Philadelphia may be.
As for Embiid, there was an encouraging change in behavior late Monday night in Phoenix. Just moments after George fouled a 22-footer at the buzzer that would have tied it, Embiid picked up a ball and started hitting mid-range shots, not far from where Kevin Durant was being interviewed about his 35- points evening.
It didn’t take long before Suns guard Bradley Beal decided to work some overtime and playfully stole the ball from Embiid before moving into a defensive position. Embiid bumped it in vintage form and then stopped for a stepback jumper that missed its mark. Beal clenched his fists. Embiid smiled and gave Beal a hug before they parted ways.
The pressure that had surrounded him for so long – even if only for a short time – was nowhere to be seen.
(Photo: Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
