Joel Embiid is not happy he copped a three-game ban for shoving a reporter.
He should be counting his lucky stars that the NBA was lenient on him.
The 76ers star got into a heated altercation with a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer over a column which made references to his son and his dead brother.
Those references were later edited out of the story in an admission from the Inquirer that the newspaper had crossed the line by getting personal in a piece that questioned Embiid’s work ethic to get in peak physical shape after a long list of injuries and fitness concerns.
Defending the media is never popular, especially coming from fellow journalists, but no professional sports league, particularly a global one like the NBA, can tolerate athletes getting physical with reporters.
They can rant, rave and even swear at them if they think they have been aggrieved but a deliberate shove should result in a harsher punishment than three games for a player who still had not been cleared to play his first game of the regular season.
Surprise, surprise, the Sixers said Embiid was ready to go once the sanctions were handed down and the former MVP will make his first appearance for 2024-25 next week.
After all the pain of “The Process”, this season is a major fork in the road for this franchise which has started the season with six losses from seven matches.
Embiid is the only draft lottery pick that the Sixers ended up retaining from their seasons of tanking with their two No.1 picks both having bizarre careers – Ben Simmons became an All-NBA player before he went into a tailspin while Markelle Fultz suffered the shooting yips as a rookie before he was also traded away.
Nerlens Noel, Michael Carter-Williams, Dario Saric, Jahlil Okafor, – they could have had Mikal Bridges, whose mother worked for the Sixers, but they traded him away for what turned out to be a lesser player in Zhaire Smith and a future first-round pick which they used in the package to snare overpaid forward Tobias Harris.
After more than a decade of Process pain and cycling through Jimmy Butler and James Harden along the way, Philly have Embiid and guard Tyrese Maxey, a steal at 21 in the 2021 draft, as the foundations of their shaky franchise and not even an Eastern Conference Finals appearance let alone a trip to the NBA Finals or a trophy.
They splashed plenty of cash in the off-season to bring in Paul George after the LA Clippers didn’t want to pay him top dollar and this was supposed to be the year that all the stars aligned.
But the early signs are far from promising.
James Harden with former 76ers teammate Joel Embiid. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)
The 76ers have admitted they will be resting Embiid throughout the regular season to ensure he is right for the playoffs, which cost them $100,000 from head office.
Embiid made the not so wise move to suit up for the Olympics in the off-season when a more prudent decision would have been to rest up.
After the Sixers actively campaigned for him to win the MVP a couple of years ago he has now conceded that he is not concerned with regular season awards and his main focus is ensuring he will be right for the games that matter.
Even when he won the MVP, he only played 68 times that season – the second-lowest tally in history for anyone who has won that honour – and on average, he misses 28 games each year.
The Cameroonian-born centre will be 31 before the season is out and realistically, he is at the tail end of his prime. Philadelphia can probably only count on him being the potential cornerstone of a championship for the next two or three years at best.
George is supposed to shoulder the load for him but he is also plagued by injury.
The 34-year-old forward started this season late due to yet another knee problem.
He is a supplementary star these days and has not been a viable main man since early in his career at Indiana.
To make matters worse, Maxey suffered a hamstring problem in Thursday’s loss to the Clippers and is out for a couple of weeks, perhaps longer.
The Sixers had planned to ease Embiid into the season, rest him from back-to-back fixtures and coast into a home-court slot in the Eastern Conference.
But after their 1-6 start to the year, the Sixers will be playing from behind as they travel to LA to face the Lakers before jetting home to host Charlotte in the final two games of Embiid’s ban.
The Athletic unearthed a stat which showed only 12 of the 150 teams that have started with six losses in their first seven outings have reached the playoffs.
Sitting last in the East, they are already seven games behind unbeaten Cleveland with champions Boston (7-2) also streaking out of sight.
It’s up to Embiid in his latest return from injury and now suspension to determine whether The Process will finally be worth it or end up in smouldering ruins and the 76ers heading back into the tank of the draft lottery again.