Maxey calls out Embiid

[HotelVitale]

Do you think it's an issue that Embiid is late to everything and doesn't take accountability for anything?

I think it's way more interesting and relevant to talking heads and sports radio types than it is a basketball issue. There are lots of good players who are late to things and don't always have spot-on team-first etiquette. I'm sure Embiid has been like that before in the past when the team was doing better too.

Embiid makes some poor decisions on the court and he's a pretty immature personality in general. That's why he's a long-term problem. Him showing upon time to things this season doesn't fix it, and honestly probably nothing really fixes it. If people want to use this meeting to keep beating that dead horse, cool I guess, but this is just typical stuff about a team struggling and trying to wake up everyone now, get everyone to dig deep and tighten everything up. Joel you gotta stop focusing on your injury and check yourself fully into this season, PG you gotta stop being so tentative and find your sea legs, etc.

Remember that the number one rule of sports talk is to make sports not about sports but about little everyday values everyone has and can argue about all day. Being a stand-up guy, leading with dignity, pursuing your goals, etc. Those often have some general overlap with actual sports things, but they're always going to be WAY more sweeping and broad than the more boring granular reasons for why a team did or didn't win a game or play well for a month or two. Not knocking that talk if it works for you but it's not meant to be actual sports analysis.

Yeah I don't think this in a vacuum is a big deal but it does speak to his maturity and professionalism

It does, but then people are like 'see he's not mature! Just start being mature!!!' as if the team can snap their fingers and do that. Or make him go to some meetings or something and magically change his issues.

That's not how management works, or how anything in the actual world works. Embiid is immature generally speaking, and he also makes kinda bad decisions at times when he's playing well, and he's also not playing that well lately, and he and the team are also trying to take his injury stuff seriously and not have him f'd up for the PO again. The actual basketball stuff now is about how to manage that, and also how to integrate him into a new set of players (including guys like McCain, Yabu, and C Martin who are playing pretty well).

Not trying to be holier than thou, but that conversation will get like 4 posts while this 'shouldn't Embiid be mature and a good responsible adult like you and me are?' will go on for page after page.

[canada_dry]

It's sad because injury free, he'd be the greatest player of this generation.

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Even when injury free he got swept in the first round.

He's been dealing with injuries since he came into the league. If he had an injury free career like Shaq did, then Embiid would be on the Mt Rushmore of greatest players. Embiid has been dealing with swollen knees for years. He can barely dunk now because his knee is shot.

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Cut it out man. He's as mentally fragile as he is physically fragile. We've seen him in those playoff 4th quarters after being healthy enough to be dropping 30+ in the first 3 quarters. Its not a pretty sight. Be serious.

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[canada_dry]

Read on Twitter

Sounds like Embiid is more mad at the leak than worrying about being on time and actually you know, being a professional.

That checks out.

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[Wallace_Wallace]

Even when injury free he got swept in the first round.

He's been dealing with injuries since he came into the league. If he had an injury free career like Shaq did, then Embiid would be on the Mt Rushmore of greatest players. Embiid has been dealing with swollen knees for years. He can barely dunk now because his knee is shot.

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Cut it out man. He's as mentally fragile as he is physically fragile. We've seen him in those playoff 4th quarters after being healthy enough to be dropping 30+ in the first 3 quarters. Its not a pretty sight. Be serious.
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He said the Mt. Rushmore? I think he's at the tier of Patrick Ewing and at best Karl Malone. To think Embiid can do what Olajuwon or Shaq or Wilt or Kareem or present day Jokic is quite insane.

[Revived]

Read on Twitter

[famicommander]

Read on Twitter

I mean, what could it be?

Other than the flopping, foul baiting, intentional injuries and cheap shots to other players, accidental injuries to other players from being a reckless moron, throwing his teammates under the bus constantly, running a Make-a-Wish media campaign for his MVP, ducking unfavorable matchups, stat-padding like prime Wilt, apparently showing up late to everything all the time, constantly choking in the playoffs, showing up to grift a gold medal and not being ready to start the season...

Besides all that, why would negativity follow him?

Mysterious. Maybe he'll have time to investigate that tonight while he's not playing NBA basketball.

[canada_dry]

Read on Twitter

Pretty in line with his general aloofness.

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[davidv2001]

If Daryl Morey and Josh Harris had balls, they would put his immature butt on the trade block and move him for the best return they can get. This is why you don’t coddle any player, no matter how good they are.

[BruttoNostra]

Read on Twitter

2023-2024: chasing a 30/10 streak even if it means playing injured and in garbage time
2024-2025: chasing a "dumb quote a day" streak even if it means downgrading himself from a superstar category to be a few quotes off being sent to Charlotte or China

[doogie_hauser]

If Daryl Morey and Josh Harris had balls, they would put his immature butt on the trade block and move him for the best return they can get. This is why you don’t coddle any player, no matter how good they are.

Aside from JoJo not being able to be traded until next Summer, which franchise would be stupid enough to take on JoJo and that contract and all the baggage that comes with it ?

They are stuck with each other and JoJo is happy to tear up his contract and take less to go elsewhere (very unlikely)

[Lakers In 5]

If Daryl Morey and Josh Harris had balls, they would put his immature butt on the trade block and move him for the best return they can get. This is why you don’t coddle any player, no matter how good they are.

There isn't a singular team in the entire galaxy that is trading for a 31 year old, extremely injury prone, $60 million p/y kind of player. Not even the Guangzhou Loong Lions and Fujian Sturgeons would not entertain the idea. Philadelphia is stuck with him until 2030, and they are screwed.

[davidv2001]

If Daryl Morey and Josh Harris had balls, they would put his immature butt on the trade block and move him for the best return they can get. This is why you don’t coddle any player, no matter how good they are.

Aside from JoJo not being able to be traded until next Summer, which franchise would be stupid enough to take on JoJo and that contract and all the baggage that comes with it ?

They are stuck with each other and JoJo is happy to tear up his contract and take less to go elsewhere (very unlikely)

New Orleans - Zion Williamson is similarly injury prone and has a bad contract of his own
Golden State - match contracts other than Curry to go all in one last time for Steph
Phoenix - See Zion Williamson when it comes to Bradley Beal
darkhorse (Minnesota) - if the Gobert-Reid/Randle pairing fails, they will need to add another star to pair with Edwards


Philadelphia wouldn’t get a bunch of future assets, but there are teams with bad contracts for injury prone players or old teams that might be willing to push their chips in one last time for a legend if the price was cheap enough.

[Infinite Llamas]

If Daryl Morey and Josh Harris had balls, they would put his immature butt on the trade block and move him for the best return they can get. This is why you don’t coddle any player, no matter how good they are.

Aside from JoJo not being able to be traded until next Summer, which franchise would be stupid enough to take on JoJo and that contract and all the baggage that comes with it ?

They are stuck with each other and JoJo is happy to tear up his contract and take less to go elsewhere (very unlikely)

New Orleans - Zion Williamson is similarly injury prone and has a bad contract of his own
Golden State - match contracts other than Curry to go all in one last time for Steph
Phoenix - See Zion Williamson when it comes to Bradley Beal
darkhorse (Minnesota) - if the Gobert-Reid/Randle pairing fails, they will need to add another star to pair with Edwards


Philadelphia wouldn’t get a bunch of future assets, but there are teams with bad contracts for injury prone players or old teams that might be willing to push their chips in one last time for a legend if the price was cheap enough.

No well run team would trade for him. Embiid has a track record of making deep playoff runs and being healthy in May? Teams aren’t stupid. Embiid isn’t the player you want to put a team over the edge. The man is a headache and a very expensive one at that.

I can’t see any fan base wanting to gut their team for him honesty, especially with his contract

[Drax]

If Daryl Morey and Josh Harris had balls, they would put his immature butt on the trade block and move him for the best return they can get. This is why you don’t coddle any player, no matter how good they are.

It's not just the team that coddled him, the media anointed him to be something special before he even stepped on an NBA court. I remember the coverage during his first two season while he was sidelined, the messiah of Philly. And it never stopped; he's now 30 and this is the first real rough patch for him in terms of coverage.

[davidv2001]

Aside from JoJo not being able to be traded until next Summer, which franchise would be stupid enough to take on JoJo and that contract and all the baggage that comes with it ?

They are stuck with each other and JoJo is happy to tear up his contract and take less to go elsewhere (very unlikely)

New Orleans - Zion Williamson is similarly injury prone and has a bad contract of his own
Golden State - match contracts other than Curry to go all in one last time for Steph
Phoenix - See Zion Williamson when it comes to Bradley Beal
darkhorse (Minnesota) - if the Gobert-Reid/Randle pairing fails, they will need to add another star to pair with Edwards


Philadelphia wouldn’t get a bunch of future assets, but there are teams with bad contracts for injury prone players or old teams that might be willing to push their chips in one last time for a legend if the price was cheap enough.

No well run team would trade for him. Embiid has a track record of making deep playoff runs and being healthy in May? Teams aren’t stupid. Embiid isn’t the player you want to put a team over the edge. The man is a headache and a very expensive one at that.

I can’t see any fan base wanting to gut their team for him honesty, especially with his contract

You can say the exact same thing about Zion and Beal as you are saying about Embiid, and they have comparable contracts. It’s not that hard to see a my problem for your problem trade with Embiid for Zion and filler or Embiid and something for Beal and Nurkic next offseason. As for Golden State, they are contending again and have a legend in Steph Curry who is nearing the end of his career. They could very well be motivated to gamble on Embiid if all it cost them was a bunch of salary matching pieces like Kuminga, etc.

Those are the only types of teams who would consider an Embiid trade, though.

[SSUBluesman]

Ya, its about time to ask what the correlation is. If Morey attracted to primadonnas? Or does he create them?

It's a great question tbh...

My opinion is probably more that he attracts them vs create them because they know if he's running the team, they can do whatever the **** they want. But...

Because he attracts them, he also super-charges them. So players who have that inclination get their desires fed into by Morey-led teams because that's the culture he creates. So it's a chicken and the egg scenario. Stars who have that inclination to just be pampered left-right-and-center will go to teams he leads because they get that. In turn, they don't get pushed by players and FO's who put culture over pamper (Spurs, Miami, GSW, etc).

To Morey's credit - I think it's a hard fine-line to balance. But I think after nearly a decade, it's clear it's not how to do it. Even before Morey, you could look at a guy like Bob Whitsitt who largely had the same philosophy for roster building... it WILL get you star players if the FO is on board and not asking questions... BUT... Using Bob's own words, "I'm not a chemistry major"... that same thing kills rosters by just trying to put as many stars together as possible without an underlining culture of "hey, we're gonna give a **** and don't just want our asses wiped for us".

surprised to see anyone -- let alone 3 people -- would tie Dwight Howard's behavior/personality to Daryl Morey

This guy was always a mess and has never known his true self.

Around the time he was drafted, Dwight told reporters he wanted to change the NBA logo from Jerry West... to a [Christian] cross because he was a "man of faith."
In a few short years he had 5 children by 5 women.
Later there were leaked text messages showing an uh ... alternative lifestyle (no judgement, but "alternative" to those 2 prior Dwights)

Before Houston, he was already hated by opponents, teammates and coaches alike, reportedly for being corny, selfish, and immature.

There was the podium disaster with Stan Van Gundy where he demanded Stan's firing then tried to publicly hug him.

You've got the Superman feud with Shaq calling him a fraud.

A teammate (Kobe) called Dwight "soft" and dared him to "try me"

All this predated Morey.

At no point was Dwight Howard anything but a prima donna with no real identity and it has made him an outsider

The entire bubble, including his own teammates, left him hanging at the League hosted DJ party -- just was Dwight live streaming himself alone, save for the paid staff. Walking around dancing alone, giving them high fives, while every other player was off somewhere else -- away from Dwight

Morey is a lot of things but Dwight's nonsense is not on him.

Seriously, does no one remember the "Dwightmare"? His lone disastrous season with the Lakers with the pouting and refusing to run PnR's and demanding touches in the post? All of this was before Morey.

The bolded is very, very true. He strikes me as the typical sheltered Uber-Christian kid that spends his 20's doing the stupid **** and growing up that other kids do in their teens. I remember an interview before he was drafted where he was preaching about how evil tattoos are because of the Bible, blah blah blah.

The truth is that most NBA players are head and shoulders above their peers prior to the NBA/college and are treated as such. This is partly why I laugh when people talk about how entitled current players are, as if it's a generational thing and not the result of an American public and school system that reveres sports and the athletes (well, most) that compete in them.

[puja21]

It's a great question tbh...

My opinion is probably more that he attracts them vs create them because they know if he's running the team, they can do whatever the **** they want. But...

Because he attracts them, he also super-charges them. So players who have that inclination get their desires fed into by Morey-led teams because that's the culture he creates. So it's a chicken and the egg scenario. Stars who have that inclination to just be pampered left-right-and-center will go to teams he leads because they get that. In turn, they don't get pushed by players and FO's who put culture over pamper (Spurs, Miami, GSW, etc).

To Morey's credit - I think it's a hard fine-line to balance. But I think after nearly a decade, it's clear it's not how to do it. Even before Morey, you could look at a guy like Bob Whitsitt who largely had the same philosophy for roster building... it WILL get you star players if the FO is on board and not asking questions... BUT... Using Bob's own words, "I'm not a chemistry major"... that same thing kills rosters by just trying to put as many stars together as possible without an underlining culture of "hey, we're gonna give a **** and don't just want our asses wiped for us".

surprised to see anyone -- let alone 3 people -- would tie Dwight Howard's behavior/personality to Daryl Morey

This guy was always a mess and has never known his true self.

Around the time he was drafted, Dwight told reporters he wanted to change the NBA logo from Jerry West... to a [Christian] cross because he was a "man of faith."
In a few short years he had 5 children by 5 women.
Later there were leaked text messages showing an uh ... alternative lifestyle (no judgement, but "alternative" to those 2 prior Dwights)

Before Houston, he was already hated by opponents, teammates and coaches alike, reportedly for being corny, selfish, and immature.

There was the podium disaster with Stan Van Gundy where he demanded Stan's firing then tried to publicly hug him.

You've got the Superman feud with Shaq calling him a fraud.

A teammate (Kobe) called Dwight "soft" and dared him to "try me"

All this predated Morey.

At no point was Dwight Howard anything but a prima donna with no real identity and it has made him an outsider

The entire bubble, including his own teammates, left him hanging at the League hosted DJ party -- just was Dwight live streaming himself alone, save for the paid staff. Walking around dancing alone, giving them high fives, while every other player was off somewhere else -- away from Dwight

Morey is a lot of things but Dwight's nonsense is not on him.

Seriously, does no one remember the "Dwightmare"? His lone disastrous season with the Lakers with the pouting and refusing to run PnR's and demanding touches in the post? All of this was before Morey.

The bolded is very, very true. He strikes me as the typical sheltered Uber-Christian kid that spends his 20's doing the stupid **** and growing up that other kids do in their teens. I remember an interview before he was drafted where he was preaching about how evil tattoos are because of the Bible, blah blah blah.

The truth is that most NBA players are head and shoulders above their peers prior to the NBA/college and are treated as such. This is partly why I laugh when people talk about how entitled current players are, as if it's a generational thing and not the result of an American public and school system that reveres sports and the athletes (well, most) that compete in them.

RE: "The bolded is very, very true." (that Dwight has never known himself)

Versus compare him to Jared McCain -- a guy who is just 100% authentic and immune to peer pressure. Doesn't seem Morey has hurt McCain in any meaningful way (yet)

[puja21]

If Daryl Morey and Josh Harris had balls, they would put his immature butt on the trade block and move him for the best return they can get. This is why you don’t coddle any player, no matter how good they are.

There isn't a singular team in the entire galaxy that is trading for a 31 year old, extremely injury prone, $60 million p/y kind of player. Not even the Guangzhou Loong Lions and Fujian Sturgeons would not entertain the idea. Philadelphia is stuck with him until 2030, and they are screwed.

You are underestimating the desperation of franchises/GMs (currently Washington, Charlotte, Toronto , New Orleans... maybe even Atlanta if this start falls apart)

There's always someone willing to trade or take on damaged goods.

Here are 5 examples -- not one of these guys was a scoring champ or MVP. None of them had won titles.

1) "Old" Chris Paul's supposedly untradeable max moved to OKC in 2019 (even got a later extension in Phoenix) with 4 highly protected FRPs for RW

2) Broken John Wall -- with 3y and more than 125M left on his deal -- was moved to Houston for Westbrook (AND a 1st!)... this was right before the start of a season after he'd been injured for 2 entire calendar years. Literally hadn't played since Christmas 2018 and suited up again for Houston at Christmas 2020.

3) After ONE failed season into a 4y 109M max from Philadelphia, Al Horford was able to be moved to OKC in Dec 2020.

4) Washed Kemba Walker 3x. 2019 = S+T to Boston. 2021 = bad for bad [supposedly] to OKC for Horford. And then still got a deal from the Knicks.

5) Similarly 1 year into a supermax (with a NTC)... Brad Beal hadn't played >60 games in FOUR straight seasons (and still hasn't since). But PHX was willing to send out FOUR 1st round picks in 2023.

[Woodsanity]

If Daryl Morey and Josh Harris had balls, they would put his immature butt on the trade block and move him for the best return they can get. This is why you don’t coddle any player, no matter how good they are.

There isn't a singular team in the entire galaxy that is trading for a 31 year old, extremely injury prone, $60 million p/y kind of player. Not even the Guangzhou Loong Lions and Fujian Sturgeons would not entertain the idea. Philadelphia is stuck with him until 2030, and they are screwed.

You are underestimating the desperation of franchises/GMs (currently Washington, Charlotte, Toronto , New Orleans... maybe even Atlanta if this start falls apart)

There's always someone willing to trade or take on damaged goods.

Here are 5 examples -- not one of these guys was a scoring champ or MVP. None of them had won titles.

1) "Old" Chris Paul's supposedly untradeable max moved to OKC in 2019 (even got a later extension in Phoenix) with 4 highly protected FRPs for RW

2) Broken John Wall -- with 3y and more than 125M left on his deal -- was moved to Houston for Westbrook (AND a 1st!)... this was right before the start of a season after he'd been injured for 2 entire calendar years. Literally hadn't played since Christmas 2018 and suited up again for Houston at Christmas 2020.

3) After ONE failed season into a 4y 109M max from Philadelphia, Al Horford was able to be moved to OKC in Dec 2020.

4) Washed Kemba Walker 3x. 2019 = S+T to Boston. 2021 = bad for bad [supposedly] to OKC for Horford. And then still got a deal from the Knicks.

5) Similarly 1 year into a supermax (with a NTC)... Brad Beal hadn't played >60 games in FOUR straight seasons (and still hasn't since). But PHX was willing to send out FOUR 1st round picks in 2023.

Even a 33-34 y.o CP3 is much more of a winning player than a 30-31 y.o Embiid who is even more injury prone than the 5'11 PG and far worse of a playoff performer. People can insult CP3 all they want but he led a lot of teams to better positions compared to before he arrived. Sure he didn't win a title but all the teams that had him had greater success than before including even the Spurs.

John Wall was moved for Westbrook, both players have very poor reputation and low value now so its not anything crazy.

Al Horford has been an effective player his entire career, one injury doesn't make him trash.

Kemba was bad for us but he isn't a 60m/yr player who plays half the season only to choke in the 1st or 2nd round.

Bradley Beal sucks and is a bad deal I will agree with you there.

[puja21]

There isn't a singular team in the entire galaxy that is trading for a 31 year old, extremely injury prone, $60 million p/y kind of player. Not even the Guangzhou Loong Lions and Fujian Sturgeons would not entertain the idea. Philadelphia is stuck with him until 2030, and they are screwed.

You are underestimating the desperation of franchises/GMs (currently Washington, Charlotte, Toronto , New Orleans... maybe even Atlanta if this start falls apart)

There's always someone willing to trade or take on damaged goods.

Here are 5 examples -- not one of these guys was a scoring champ or MVP. None of them had won titles.

1) "Old" Chris Paul's supposedly untradeable max moved to OKC in 2019 (even got a later extension in Phoenix) with 4 highly protected FRPs for RW

2) Broken John Wall -- with 3y and more than 125M left on his deal -- was moved to Houston for Westbrook (AND a 1st!)... this was right before the start of a season after he'd been injured for 2 entire calendar years. Literally hadn't played since Christmas 2018 and suited up again for Houston at Christmas 2020.

3) After ONE failed season into a 4y 109M max from Philadelphia, Al Horford was able to be moved to OKC in Dec 2020.

4) Washed Kemba Walker 3x. 2019 = S+T to Boston. 2021 = bad for bad [supposedly] to OKC for Horford. And then still got a deal from the Knicks.

5) Similarly 1 year into a supermax (with a NTC)... Brad Beal hadn't played >60 games in FOUR straight seasons (and still hasn't since). But PHX was willing to send out FOUR 1st round picks in 2023.

Even a 33-34 y.o CP3 is much more of a winning player than a 30-31 y.o Embiid who is even more injury prone than the 5'11 PG and far worse of a playoff performer. People can insult CP3 all they want but he led a lot of teams to better positions compared to before he arrived. Sure he didn't win a title but all the teams that had him had greater success than before including even the Spurs.

John Wall was moved for Westbrook, both players have very poor reputation and low value now so its not anything crazy.

Al Horford has been an effective player his entire career, one injury doesn't make him trash.

Kemba was bad for us but he isn't a 60m/yr player who plays half the season only to choke in the 1st or 2nd round.

Bradley Beal sucks and is a bad deal I will agree with you there.

Not one thing you wrote is relevant to my point.

My reply was purely to highlight that someone would trade for Embiid -- you replied like i was defending Embiid (I hate Embiid -- loser mentality player and yes complete choke artist.)

Some of your reply wasn't accurate; an injury isn't what ruined Horford's bad season in Philly. He played 1 fewer game than the season before and 100% of the playoffs. it just wasn't a good fit. But if you go back and read NBA twitter/blogs/pods from that time, his value was tanked. MANY scouts and GMs thought he might be washed.

You missed the point completely on this one: "Wall was moved for Westbrook" -- yes my man, that's why it's a great example. That no matter how low someone's value sinks, there are always other bad contracts in the league to be swapped for someone like Embiid