It’s Time for Iron Man Embiid to Go
March 3, 2025
Everyone in the Philadelphia media has been dancing around the only question left in this doomed Joel Embiid era, so I have no choice but to ask it myself:
Why is this brittle, over-the-hill former superstar still wearing a Sixers uniform?
Is there one bonehead left in our city who actually still believes in The Process, the four-year tanking experiment whose biggest prize was a pouty man-child from Cameroon with the durability of tissue paper.
Joel Embiid needs to take his drama to a city that might handle better all of his narcissistic nonsense. The sad truth is, Embiid is the worst kind of bust – a truly elite athlete who never approached his potential because of his own mental and physical shortcomings.
The Sixers were supposed to win multiple NBA championships with Embiid clogging the middle on defense and dominating everywhere on offense. It’s clear by now that they will win no championships with him. Hell, they haven’t even made it to the Eastern Conference finals in his decade here.
He needs to go now – whether in a clearance-sale trade or, better yet, a retirement. He was shut down for the season over the past weekend when his left knee wouldn’t respond to the latest advances devised by modern science. No one was shocked.
When is the last time, in any major American sport, that a superstar has missed almost as many games in his career as those he was able to play? At the end of this season Embiid will have appeared in 452 games and missed 427. In short, he has been absent 48% of the time.
And he has to represent one of the worst investments in NBA history, if not all of professional sports. He has pocketed $265 million in the past decade, or more than half a million for each game he actually played. This season, he has received $51.6 million, or $2.6 mill per game.
The Sixers, who look more and more like complete dumbasses under owner Joshua Harris and GM Daryl Morey, responded to Embiid’s uncertain future at the end of last season by extending his contract for three years beyond this one, at an average of $64 million per season.
While this theft has been taking place in full view of the public, Embiid did take a few minutes out of his sedentary life to deliver one of the most insulting and tone-deaf addresses in Philadelphia sports history last November Surely you remember when he said those grating words, “I’ve done way too f—— much for this city” while adopting his favorite victim persona.
Embiid didn’t like the way columnist Marcus Hayes – the last bold voice in Philadelphia sports media – shamed him by wondering how proud his family would feel about him now that he rarely plays. A few days later, the headcase star did what any pampered infant would do. He shoved the writer amid a blizzard of profanities.
What happened next was actually laughable. Embiid received a three-game suspension that elicited no public reaction because it’s impossible to suspend a player who doesn’t play.
Hayes actually apologized for his column.
I would have nominated it for an award.
I know for a fact that I am not alone in wanting to see the Embiid era end. I get emails every day from the select few fans who still care about the Sixers, and he has no supporters left among my correspondents.
The truth is, if the Sixers had traded Embiid after his MVP season in 2023, they would have actually given new life to The Process, since the return would have been franchise-altering. But that move would have required much smarter people than the ones making the decisions for the Sixers these days.
Instead, the return now for this dented underachiever would be pennies on the dollar – if any franchise is dumb enough to show faith in a grump who is more likely to drag down a team than to lead it to the championship finals, or – heaven forbid – the NBA Finals.
The Joel Embiid era is over, people.
Whether the Sixers realize it or not.
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Speaking of athletes who were expected to lead their Philadelphia teams to championships, here’s a name you haven’t heard in more than a year – Carter Hart.
I bring it up now only because he is about to return to the spotlight not just here but throughout North America in what promises to be an explosive court drama.
The former franchise goaltender has been out of the game for 14 months since he was charged with sexual assault for an incident that happened in 2018 when he was a member of the Canadian world junior team.
Hart and four other members of that club will go on trial next month, when the accuser will face her alleged assailants for the first time in seven years.
Details on who allegedly did what will finally come out, with the careers of the five players hanging in the delicate balance. So far, there has been only speculation about exactly what happened, despite a seven-year police investigation and an independent NBA probe.
If Hart is convicted, he would face jail time that could end his hockey career. Through his attorneys, he has insisted on his innocence and will attempt to prove it in court proceedings scheduled to start on April 22.
Strictly from a fan perspective, that court trial represents more drama than anything the Flyers have managed on the ice, despite a slightly better than anticipated second season with my former co-host Keith Jones as president.
If Hart is found guilty, or even if he pleads to a lesser charge, his career here will be in jeopardy. Philadelphia can be a very forgiving city for its athletes – see: Michael Vick – but sexual assault is pretty much unforgiveable, regardless of the ages of the assailants or the circumstances.
Of course, if Hart is vindicated, he will be able to start anew with the Flyers next season. He is still the best goaltender in the organization, by far.
After six seasons in the NHL and 14 months in limbo, Carter is still only 26 years old.
Justice is long overdue for the alleged victim, the alleged assailants and, yes, even for the Flyers.