Joel Embiid has not played this season and will not play Saturday night against Memphis. He did speak to the media on Friday and said this:

That’s a quality soundbite for a Friday afternoon.

Transcribed:

Dave Uram (KYW NewsRadio) – “When was it decided between the Olympics and today (Friday) that you would be taking this approach and missing these games to start the season?”

Embiid: “It was never decided. Like I said, everybody has been on the same page. If your body doesn’t react well, and if your body tells you one thing (pauses) – I’ve done it, from what I can tell you, I’ve broken my face twice, I came back early with the risk of losing my vision, had broken fingers, I still came back. So I’m not going to sit here and be like – I see people saying ‘he doesn’t want to play.’ I’ve done way too much for this city putting myself at risk for people to be saying that. I do think it’s bullshit. Like that dude, he’s not here, Marcus, whatever his name is, I’ve done way too much for this fucking city to be treated like this. Done way too fucking much. I wish I was as lucky as other ones, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not doing whatever it takes to be out there, which I’m gonna be pretty soon.”

A lot to unpack there, notably the shot at Marcus Hayes, who, if you recall, was critical of Embiid in an Inquirer column that originally included this passage:

Hayes later apologized, writing: “So, I rewrote the lede to my column and replaced the picture. I can see why so many people were upset about it. Sorry about that. Thanks for all of the constructive criticism.”


There’s your context. Hayes isn’t exactly some beloved figure in the Philadelphia sports media, but he’s certainly not the only person critical of Embiid, and listening to Joel, it seems like may not have been talking only about Marcus. He mentions “people” saying that he doesn’t want to play, so perhaps the retort includes fans and former players as well.

Whatever your interpretation, I don’t get the sense that there’s some widespread thought in the Philadelphia sporting ecosystem that Joel Embiid does not want to play basketball. The frustration is largely because he was not ready to begin the regular season, a frustration amplified by the fact that he played with Team USA in the Paris Olympics. The criticism is more along the lines of, “you were healthy enough to play in France, but not ready for the regular season, so what gives?” Fans are entitled to feel that way, especially the ones who paid for tickets to any of the first couple of home games, expecting that the star player would be good to go for the beginning of the campaign. Yet here we are experiencing another clown show of an October for your team, your town, your 76ers. In the last four seasons we’ve begun with two superstar holdouts and now this.

On the other hand, Embiid also has the right to express frustration with anyone calling him soft. It’s certainly not a one-way street, and those people are definitely out there. The guy has battled through a lot in his career, but I think the years-running annoyance is less about the injuries themselves and more about the handling of those injuries and the lack of information provided to fans and media whenever something like this happens. Just last week the team was just fined $100,000 by the NBA because of shortcomings in their injury communication and we’re all just worn out with this shit. Nothing can ever be normal for this franchise, which is why a lot of people are currently slumbering and don’t want to be woken up until the playoffs begin.

On the journalism front, I do think writers who are critical of players should show up and face those players. But Marcus Hayes is a columnist and not a beat writer, and columnists float around from team to team and show up at different spots around town. When you combine that with the fact that the Sixers (and most all teams) don’t provide a schedule for when player X will be available, it’s hard to know when the opportunity will arise. That’s the inherent problem with opinion writers. They aren’t beholden to one team. But if Marcus did get in front of Embiid at some point soon, he’d probably reduce the level of criticism being directed at him.