{"id":259590,"date":"2025-08-31T04:27:22","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T04:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/259590\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T04:27:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T04:27:22","slug":"joel-embiid-on-latest-criticism-sixers-drama-feels-like-negativity-keeps-following-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/259590\/","title":{"rendered":"Joel Embiid on latest criticism, Sixers drama: \u2018Feels like negativity keeps following me\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

MEMPHIS, Tenn. \u2014 Joel Embiid<\/a> wasn\u2019t visibly angry. His voice didn\u2019t drip with disappointment, or some over-the-top emotion.<\/p>\n

His tone was very matter-of-fact when addressing the media following the Philadelphia 76ers\u2019 117-111 loss to the Grizzlies<\/a> on Wednesday night. In his first public comments since Monday night\u2019s team meeting<\/a>, in which guard Tyrese Maxey spoke to Embiid<\/a> about being tardy to team functions, and Tuesday\u2019s reports of that meeting. Embiid<\/a> made it clear that he heard the criticism from his teammate, who is also a good friend. He made it clear that he is accountable for those actions and plans to improve going forward. He also made it clear that he didn\u2019t like the details of the meeting spilling into public.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever leaked that is a real piece of s\u2014,\u201d Embiid said.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about a lot of things. I don\u2019t want to get into detail. But that whole thing, that part of it, took probably 40 seconds. But it\u2019s Joel Embiid, so things will always get blown out of proportion. It\u2019s whatever, though. I\u2019ll take it. I\u2019m the reason for everything, so I guess I\u2019ll take the blame for everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nothing malicious being said. I like when people are telling me when I\u2019m not doing good and when I need to be better. That part of it (tardiness) probably happened once or twice when I wasn\u2019t playing. So I need to be better. I need to be perfect. I need to be on point, which I\u2019m going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The frustration for Embiid comes from a culmination of events piling up in a young season that\u2019s threatening to go further off the rails. This includes everything from his murky injury status<\/a> at the beginning of the year to his three-game suspension<\/a> for an altercation with a reporter, which combined to keep him off the court for Philly\u2019s first nine games. The 76ers<\/a> (2-12) are 14 games into a season they thought would allow them to compete for a championship, and in Embiid\u2019s eyes, most of the talk around the team includes anything but actual basketball.<\/p>\n

Embiid said he thought the details of Monday\u2019s team meeting were overblown. Not that they weren\u2019t true. He doesn\u2019t dispute that. But more that the conversation in the meeting was typical of teammates holding each other accountable. Embiid and Maxey have a close friendship, on and off the floor. And, indeed, following Wednesday night\u2019s loss in Memphis, they spent a good chunk of time talking to each other in the locker room, while eating a pile of chicken wings. They have a level of friendship where they can criticize each other, if the need should arise.<\/p>\n

What Embiid clearly didn\u2019t like was that he had to answer for a conversation that he felt should have remained private. And the fact that it led to more questions that he needed to talk about didn\u2019t sit well with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of annoying, having to deal with the same things over and over and over,\u201d Embiid said. \u201cAll I am trying to do is focus on basketball and be the best I can be for my family, on and off the court. But for some reason, it just feels like negativity keeps following me, which I don\u2019t understand why. It\u2019s a shame, but it doesn\u2019t change the fact that we still have to do better as a team.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we don\u2019t have a lot of margin for error.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Of that, there is no doubt. Philadelphia\u2019s season is teetering on the brink. The Sixers lost their fifth consecutive game on Wednesday night. They have the worst record in the NBA<\/a>. They lost star wing Paul George<\/a> to a hyperextended left knee<\/a>, the same knee he injured during the preseason. They lost in the same way they had much of the season: turnovers, missed shots and missed assignments at inopportune times on both sides of the floor.<\/p>\n

George will be evaluated further on Thursday, but the hope is that he escaped serious injury and that everything is structurally sound with the knee. But it\u2019s just another in a long line of maladies for the Sixers<\/a> this season. For Philadelphia, whatever could go wrong has seemingly gone wrong. Wednesday night was the first time this season Embiid, George and Maxey were on the floor at the same time, although Maxey\u2019s minutes were substantially limited after he missed six games with a strained right hamstring. Potentially losing George, even if for a limited amount of time, looms as another potential roadblock. George walked out of the locker room Wednesday night with a moderate limp.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sucks,\u201d Maxey said. \u201cI know how it feels to be hurt and to not be able to be out there and help your team. So, I definitely feel badly for Paul.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday, George echoed Embiid\u2019s sentiments that meetings like the one the 76ers had were common, and reaction to details of the meeting being leaked to the public were being overblown.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole meeting, that\u2019s normal in the NBA. Teams go through that. I\u2019ve been on multiple teams where we\u2019ll at some point have a meeting and a check-in if things aren\u2019t going right or if we know we could be playing better and we\u2019re trying to get the most out of one another. That\u2019s normal,\u201d George said on his podcast<\/a>, \u201cPodcast P with Paul George.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was healthy. It was a positive conversation. It was a healthy conversation. We all just want the best,\u201d George said.<\/p>\n

Embiid, for his part, played his best game of the season, scoring 35 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. He made shots. He played at a good pace. He defended better than he had in his previous games. For the first time this season, he looked like Joel Embiid. The Sixers are looking for any sliver to hang on to. And once again, they have to go back to a drawing board in a season they need to figure out how to turn around.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can still compete for a championship,\u201d Embiid said. \u201cBut this is going to take time. A lot of our issues are coming from us not being on the same page. We have a lot of talent, but we still have to go out and actually do it. We have a pretty good chance; it would be a pretty good story if we did win. It\u2019s just hard. You get a player back and then you potentially lose one. But whatever my body allows me to do, I\u2019m going to go out and do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Photo: Petre Thomas \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MEMPHIS, Tenn. \u2014 Joel Embiid wasn\u2019t visibly angry. His voice didn\u2019t drip with disappointment, or some over-the-top emotion.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3769],"tags":[679,7,6,678,207,3817,1080],"class_list":{"0":"post-259590","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-76ers","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","13":"tag-philadelphia76ers","14":"tag-top-sports-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115121491074065563","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}