It’s Official: Joel Embiid Is a Lost Cause
If you’re a Philadelphia sports fan, stop reading this blog right now and check out the brilliant article on Joel Embiid currently available at ESPN.com. It is the best deep dive into a sports enigma I have ever read.
The author is Dokun Akintoye, and the title of his masterpiece is Joel Embiid Sees You.
Indeed, he does. Embiid has always had a gift for demonizing the people who surround him – including his own teammates, his countless enablers on the coaching staff and in the organization and, of course, the critical fans and cynical media – throughout an NBA career that spans 11 seasons, more or less.
The word less here is essential because the most gifted Sixers center since Wilt Chamberlain has missed close to half the games in his perplexing tenure as a professional basketball player.
Once you have read the article – I can’t believe you haven’t checked it out already; I made the request four paragraphs ago – you will understand, maybe for the first time, why Embiid has never won a championship here, and never will.
In fact, the best news in the epic piece is that the Cameroon native has finally started therapy, not for his myriad of physical issues but for the real cause of his problems, his mind.
He truly is the head case to end all head cases.
It’s clear from the very start that Akintoye spent months winning the trust of a reluctant subject, taking full advantage of their cultural familiarities (both have African roots) and their mutual interest in explaining the inexplicable – how a player with Embiid’s extraordinary skills has failed to lead the Sixers to a conference final, let alone the championship round.
Despite the author’s even-handed approach, the overriding theme is that everyone is at fault but the player himself. This is hardly a major revelation, given Embiid’s tired persona as a perpetual victim. For the first time, though, we get to witness the warped way Embiid experiences his insulated world.
It has been this way with Embiid since he was 12 years old, getting uninvited to family outings on a sightseeing trip to France because he opted to stay with his aunt playing video games on the first day of the vacation.
“From then, it never really changed,” he said, not once feeling that it has ever been his responsibility to change it.
It was also not Embiid’s fault, in his eyes, when he became such a loner in high school, having very little to do with his teammates, that he had to move in with an assistant coach.
He just assumed people would adjust to his standoffish personality. He never saw it as his duty to meet anyone halfway.
His underwhelming response on camera after being picked third in the 2014 NBA draft was also a big misunderstanding. The broadcast was delayed. Eventually, we could see that he pumped his fist. Wasn’t that enough?
Every chapter in every lost season of his exasperating career has the same sad pattern. Something bad usually happens – injuries to every part of his body, from head to toe, packaged around one misconception after another – with no genuine sympathy from anyone. It’s just so unfair.
In his mind, the biggest disconnect with the public is his image as being soft, or lazy, or both. How could a player who didn’t start playing basketball until he was 16 and turned into an NBA superstar ever be considered soft or lazy? He hammered that point throughout the article.
At the same time, he reveals with no sense of irony that he totally gave up on rehabbing the first broken foot that cost him, ultimately, the first two seasons of his career. His argument is, what was he supposed to do? No one would believe him when he said it wasn’t healing right.
After his first rehab failed, then-GM Sam Hinkie sent the symbol of his Process all the way to Qatar, as far away from the negativity as possible. The coddling of the star center had begun. Brett Brown, a longtime family friend and coach of the Sixers, saw it as a sworn duty to insulate his star from all of the naysayers.
Joel responded by blowing off all of the appointments with experts in Qatar lined up to help him. His explanation was that he was just trying to stay on an NBA schedule, which requires late nights and very late mornings. Meetings before noon were impossible for him.
For these reasons and many more, Embiid’s reputation inside the Sixers organization became toxic early in his days there, he suggests, but only because no one took the time to understand that he was learning a new language, adjusting to a new culture and trying to meet the expectations of a top draft pick at the same time.
Not his fault.
Never his fault.
The setbacks were all different, but the conclusion was always the same. He’s the victim. Always the victim.
Akintoye was generous to Embiid not to point out in the piece that, through more than a decade of this exhausting drama, the one-time MVP has earned $266 million – more than a quarter of a billion dollars for zero parades. Last season he pocketed $51 million for 19 games, or close to $3 million per contest.
The author had no responsibility (but I do) to discuss the many times fans paid hundreds (and sometimes more) on games anticipating his appearance, only to find out at game time that he was a no-show.
How do you tell a kid wearing Embiid’s jersey that his hero is not there? How do you explain to him that season-ticket holders attended more Sixers games last season than their biggest star?
You don’t. You tell him the sad, obvious truth.
This is the truth: Embiid is no victim. He is an petulant child who, despite a difficult upbringing, has never been able to handle adversity. At the first sign of trouble, his instinct is to deflect blame from himself to whoever or whatever is the easiest target.
He cringes at the label of soft, but that is exactly what he is. He won the lottery – actually, most prizes are not close to $266 million – and he wants the sympathy of people who will never have the luxury of living on NBA time, or of traveling halfway around the world to treat a medical problem, or of driving fancy cars and living in a Villanova mansion.
I stopped being a fan of Joel Embiid five years or so ago when I began to see the pattern of his behavior – the ebb of his controversies and the flow of his woe-is-me narrative.
With time comes wisdom. Sixty-five years ago, when I was nine, my love for sports blossomed the moment I watched a center on the Philadelphia 76ers, Wilt Chamberlain, play basketball like no one before or since. He was the greatest player in NBA history – well beyond Michael Jordan or LeBron James.
Chamberlain, in his own way, was also an enigma, second fiddle in the championship rankings to Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics. Bill won 11 titles, Wilt only two. As much as I would love to change those numbers, they are right there in the same record book that Wilt otherwise dominates.
I kept supporting Chamberlain despite my frustrations because he was someone worthy of my devotion. He played through injuries, knew how to laugh at himself and understood that the gift of unlimited talent – at seven feet, no less – had a few unique obstacles attached to it.
Embiid has no such understanding.
He deserves none of my support.
I started as a Sixer fan because of a talented seven-foot center, and now I’m ending my allegiance because of a talented seven-foot center.
Neither the team nor its biggest star deserves my support anymore.
Now please go read the article. If you are still a fan of Embiid after that, you are probably a candidate for therapy yourself.
Not me. That article was the final indignity for me.
I’m done.