Sixers

The NBA Can F*ck Off with Joel Embiid’s $10,000 Fine

By Kyle Scott

Published: Jul 10th, 2017 · 3:24 PM EDT

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I feel like enough hasn’t been made about Joel Embiid’s ludicrous $10k fine from the NBA for dropping an F bomb on a fucking Instagram live stream. Yeah, I know– $10k to an NBA player with the career earnings potential of Embiid is like me paying the toll on the bridge from Avalon into Sea Isle. At worst it will slow him down, at best he can just throw the money out the window in a festive fashion like the mailman in Funny Farm. But the NBA doesn’t seem to care when… just about any other player curses on social media or elsewhere. They have no problem allowing cameras and mics courtside following a series win where the celebrations have to be almost completely bleeped out to sidestep an FCC violation. They have no problem with their biggest star slamming the league over CBA issues just last week. They have no problem with Mo Speights following around fat people and tweeting insults. And yet, Joel Embiid drops an impromptu and prompted F bomb on an IG live and that’s a $10k fine?

We talked about this on the podcast a few weeks ago– Embiid will eventually say something on social media that will get him in trouble. Not an F bomb but something vaguely offensive to some group that he will be able to downplay because he’s just keeping it real. He’s like Charles Barkley in that sense. He’s so open and honest that he has set the bar so high for himself to say something offensive that it’s almost unreachable. Maybe the $10k wrist slap is the league’s way of reminding him to reign it in. But still, it’s absurd. Live streams, by their very nature, aren’t meant to live on. Had Embiid tweeted a hardy F U to LaVar Ball, a literal nobody, then maybe this would be a different story. But he didn’t– he said it in response to someone who asked him a question on his live stream. No harm, no foul.

Of all the miscreants and shitheads in and around the league, Embiid should be the least of their worries. The NBA has done a really good job of letting players be themselves, too. Which makes the fine that much more strange. There’s a small, tiny part of me that thinks the Sixers requested this of the NBA just to prevent them from totally losing control of their marketing agenda to player social media accounts.

Whatever the case, FREE JOJO.