Joel Embiid couldn’t even wait a week before wanting to blow up the plan he and the Sixers agreed on so that he could be healthy for the first time in the playoffs. You can’t make this shit up:

My favorite basketball team’s best player is a 30-year-old Internet troll. Why couldn’t I have been born in Boston?

This is the thing that frustrates me about Embiid. What happened to that text to Daryl Morey after you lost to the Knicks about doing anything possible to get you healthy for the postseason? Tim Bontemps:

As a result, after the Knicks series ended, Embiid texted Morey.

“‘We got to do whatever it takes to make sure that in the postseason I’m healthy,'” Embiid recalled at the team’s media day last month.

Now we’re one game in, he looks sluggish, and he’s already lobbing nuggets in the media that make it sound like he’s going to force the Sixers medical staff to let him play back to backs.  This is what makes it frustrating to be a Sixers fan. Where’s the leadership? Where’s someone to shut this shit down and get everyone on the same page? A game against the Cavs in November doesn’t mean shit in the playoffs when Embiid is dragging his knee down the court.

And the funniest part about it is that it’s all because he’s on the Internet so much. How embarrassing is that? Rich guy who’s living the American Dream all the way from a village in Africa is being influenced by trolls on social media. Like let that sink in. It’s not Giannis or the Celtics from stopping Embiid from a title. It’s the dork behind @NBACentel trolling him for flopping and sitting out.


Is it too late to add a social media time limit clause in that next extension? I can’t believe one of the best players in the NBA needs an iPad limit like parents have to do with their six year olds. Cause this dude is influenced so much by social media. He reads everything. He thinks Philly doesn’t appreciate him because of a couple burner accounts on Twitter say so. He hasn’t played the first couple weeks of the season and NBA Twitter is so inside his head he’s completely abandoned his stance. This is insane. Like grow up. You’re 30 years old. If you found out your buddy who had a successful job, who is a husband and father was a 30-year-old Internet troll you’d question everything you knew about the friendship.

The troll stuff was funny like a decade ago. You have two to three years to win a title and we’re talking about taking a flamethrower to the plan one game in. Why? Because what Charles Barkley and Shaq said? Who gives a fuck what two dudes who don’t watch the games say about you? They’ve been regurgitating the same talking points your entire career:

Can someone shake some sense into the big guy that these dudes don’t matter? Shaq is the biggest fraud in the world. This is the same guy who missed the beginning of the season because he wanted to get surgery on his own terms because he was injured during “company time” via Justin Sharaf:

When asked why he did not have the surgery immediately after last season’s championship series, Shaq responded by saying that he should be allowed to have the surgery whenever he wants, even if that meant missing parts of the season. He asked why it wasn’t perfectly acceptable to have the surgery done on “company time” instead of during his offseason.

Not to mention all the other times he started the season out of shape.

If Sixers fans are going to continue to endure this start it better have an outcome of Embiid being healthy in the playoffs for the first time ever. But the way this franchise has been managed since the new regime bought it no Sixers fan should have any hope.

UPDATE: Good news. Embiid and Paul George are out tonight: