In the wake of the Philadelphia 76ers‘ loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, Sixers’ star center Joel Embiid became the story of the night after he was involved in a physical altercation with a local columnist in the team’s locker room post-game.
Tensions are high with this Sixers team as the losses pile up, the games go by without Embiid or Paul George on the court, and the fans become increasingly fed up with the explanation or lack thereof from the organization. It certainly doesn’t help the situation when select media members do what they can to cause further disruption unnecessarily.
Recently, the columnist involved wrote an opinion piece on Joel Embiid, one that even many fans felt was unfair to the former MVP. In a portion of the article—which has since been deleted due to the public backlash—Hayes mentioned both Embiid’s son and Embiid’s now-deceased younger brother, for whom his son was named, while claiming that Embiid hasn’t lived up to the example of greatness he wished to show his family.
Embiid made it clear that he was aware of the article on Friday following the team’s practice, in which Embiid alluded to the columnist, commented on his absence from the practice, and then continued on making his feelings on the article clear.
Flash forward to Saturday night, and the powder in the keg was ignited as yet another odd quandary has befallen the Sixers.
The entire incident was closed except for the players, team staff, and media members with specified locker room access.
Sixers’ beat reporter Kyle Neubeck of PHLY Sports summarized the situation during PHLY Sports’ Sixers postgame show.
“We have our press conference with Nick Nurse.” Neubeck began. “We go to the locker room; Joel is seated in there. Marcus Hayes, who everyone knows, was on Joel’s radar this week. [He] gave a lengthy quote, taking shots at him yesterday. Marcus was present in the locker room, and the second that Joel realized he was there, [and] got into a verbal back and forth.”
As far as what was said during this back-and-forth, Neubeck paraphrased the incident.
“The basic gist of it was basically, you can say, I suck. You can say whatever you want about me as a player. Don’t ever put my dead brother’s name in your mouth. Don’t talk about my family. Don’t bring them into this. You want to talk to me like a man and talk to me about basketball; that’s different. But if you ever talk about my family again, we’re going to have real problems.”
Things didn’t stop there, as another exchange of words led to another round of back and forth between the incidents, eventually becoming physical.
“They go kind of back and forth, and at some point, let’s say, 90 seconds to two minutes into this, back and forth, Joel shoves him, team security steps in, players kind of surround the situation and everyone kind of dispersed.”
It didn’t take long for word to get out, as the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Keith Pompey was the first to acknowledge the incident, shortly followed by a tweet from ESPN’s Shams Charania.
Charania also mentioned that the NBA would be investigating the matter further, making it the second time in this young season that the league has investigated the Philadelphia 76ers. As for the investigation results, time will tell, but it’s certainly less than ideal while sitting at 1-4 on the season.
Two lessons should be learned from tonight’s events. Violence is not the answer, and actions—including words (spoken or typed)—have consequences.
This story continues to develop. Be sure to check back in for any and all updates.
