When the current NBA season started, there were questions as to whether Joel Embiid would ever be able to play basketball at a high level again. He had gone through serious knee surgery during the end of the previous season and in his first few weeks back, he looked like a shell of himself. It hurt to watch him jump or run, if you could call his pained attempts at airtime “jumping.” Was this Brando in The Godfather, having his lines fed to him through an earpiece and reading from cue cards taped to the chests of his costars? Was Philadelphia, and the world, watching the end of a special career?
It was reminiscent of his arrival in Philadelphia over a decade earlier, when he sat out his first two seasons due to injury. There were well-founded worries that he’d never see the court, let alone live up to being a No. 1 overall draft pick. But Embiid has not been one to give up easily.
After missing nearly all of November this season, he played in over half of the Sixers games in December and played decently. He wasn’t the dominant force that the fans knew him to be, but he also wasn’t visibly struggling, which was a win. Then the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve and like a Catholic at confession, all his body’s sins seemed to wash away. Basketball Jesus had risen from his tomb. Embiid averaged 29.7 points per game in January, missing just three of the Sixers’ 17 games. They were 10-4 in the games he played in, and it looked like contention was no longer a pipe dream.
At the same time, the trade deadline loomed on the calendar in bright neon lights. Even someone who had lost their glasses with lenses as thick as a phonebook could see that Philadelphia was in a position to buy, and to try–at least one more time–to contend for a championship with Embiid.
The 76ers ownership betrayed Joel Embiid
This was clear to all, but especially to the big man. A week before the deadline after a 2-point win over Sacramento–a game where Embiid dropped 37 points–he made his thoughts on the approaching deadline apparent.
“I don’t know what they’re gonna do, but I hope that at least we get a chance to just go out and compete because we’ve got a good group of guys in this locker room,” Embiid said via Jeff Skversky. “The vibes are great. Like I said, in the past we’ve been, I guess, ducking the tax, so hopefully we think about improving because I think we have a chance.”
The Sixers front office responded with…one trade: shipping off Jared McCain to the Oklahoma City Thunder to get under the luxury tax.
It’s hard not to see this as more than a slight to Embiid. After all, at 12 seasons with the Sixers, he is the third-longest tenured player in the NBA behind Stephen Curry and Draymond Green. His loyalty to the city and the franchise has been vigorous, steadfast, and unwavering, even when there were plenty of opportunities for wavering. It’s the type of loyalty that has been lost as a trait in the evolution of the modern superstar. He is one of the last links to an NBA that no longer exists; he and Curry, soon to go the way of the dodos and dinosaurs before them.
Embiid has been unfairly maligned by both the league and the press since his genesis as an NBA superstar, but he has worked through it. The league instituted its 65-game minimum for awards in response to his MVP season. The GM that drafted him, Sam Hinkie, was forcibly removed from his position and blackballed from the league by Adam Silver, replaced by a man who would go on to use burner accounts on Twitter to trash his star center. He has been urged by every major and local media outlet at one point or another to ask out of Philadelphia, but he loves the city more than any athlete has in a long time, in a way that Bryce Harper and Jalen Hurts never could, no offense to them.
Embiid has lived his whole adult life in the city of brotherly love. It’s where his son was born, where he started his family. It’s where he became the man and player he is today.
In return for that loyalty and love, Josh Harris, the public face behind the private equity group that owns the Sixers, spurned his request for another chance to seriously compete for a title. Harris, who also owns the New Jersey Devils and Washington Commanders, has ostensibly lost interest in the Sixers’ success. Embiid's contract sees him making $60 million a year for the two seasons after this one, with a $67 million player option the year after that. A contract he more than earned in his first decade with the team.
When Harris looks at that money promised to Embiid, he sees two overpaid cornerbacks, an aging tight end, and an ill-advised max extension for a lackluster quarterback. It makes sense that he would rebuff Embiid’s request for roster improvement. For Harris, every chance he can get to aggravate Embiid–privately praying it leads to a trade request–is a chance to free up space in his checkbook for use on a failing franchise in Washington. Or New Jersey but hockey is relatively inconsequential in this matter.
Embiid will retire as the most talented player to ever put on a 76ers jersey. He peaked higher than any player in the team’s long history. Banners fly forever, sure, but no Oklahoma City Thunder fan will experience what it was like to watch a player like Embiid when he was on. There’s never been a player his size that could defend the way he could, dribble the way he does, and shoot with the touch he has. It’s a unique experience to watch a player like that play for your franchise, but an invaluable one.
Except Josh Harris has put a value on it: Jayden Daniels and company maybe scraping together 10 wins to miss the NFC wild card by a game and a half. I’d make a hockey reference here about Jack Hughes or whoever else is on the New Jersey Devils to drive my point home but again I simply cannot bring myself to care about hockey in a serious manner.
There will be no revolt if Harris is successful in passive aggressively nudging Embiid out of Philadelphia. Hell, many of the fans will be on his side, as they were too preoccupied with Facebook Reels and senescent sports talk radio to realize that something special was happening in their city.
But those who know what they watched, those who know what they have in Embiid, they will experience a sorrow that dwarfs losing a playoff series or even a championship if Josh Harris gets his wish. To them, rightfully, there will never be another Embiid. To Harris, he is just another number on a spreadsheet filled with numbers.