Marcus Hayes: Sixers absentee Joel Embiid fibs in his own defense and has a gold-medal deflection

PHILADELPHIA — Absentee superstar star Joel Embiid held a pop-up press conference at Sixers practice Friday to defend his lack of preparation for the 2024-25 season. It was the first time since he began the season missing games because he was unfit to play. He did not commit to playing anytime soon, and he did not address how much his participation in the Olympics has delayed his fitness to begin earning his $51 million salary for this season, but he did say a couple of things that deserve address.

Regarding his fitness and health: “It was never decided. Like I said, everybody has been on the same page.”

Embiid, who has missed the first four games and will miss at least one more Saturday, claimed that the Sixers knew all along that he might not be ready for Game 1. According to Sixers sources, that is simply untrue.

They monitored his progress during the offseason and were assured that he was progressing nicely. When he arrived at training camp overweight — coach Nick Nurse said last week Embiid has lost 25 pounds so far — and still bothered by knee issues from his surgery in February, it was then that the Sixers devised a plan that would prepare him for the rigors of the regular season and, hopefully, would preserve him for a deep playoff run. Embiid has never been healthy in any of his 11 seasons, and only once was he healthy for a playoff run, and that was in 2020, when COVID delayed the playoffs by several months.

Regarding two recent columns I’ve written that criticize his professionalism and the Sixers’ lack of transparency during this latest bizarre development in the Sixers’ long history of bizarre developments:

“Marcus ... whatever his name is. I’ve done way too much for this [expletive] city to be treated like this, so I’ve done way too [expletive] much.”

Indeed, Embiid has won an MVP award, has carried the Sixers for nine seasons, and might wind up being be the best player in franchise history but, unlike Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving, Moses Malone and Allen Iverson, to name a few, Embiid’s teams have not advanced past the second round of the playoffs. And while Embiid has played through injury and sickness in the postseason, well, he’s not the only one. Here’s a thought: Be in better shape when the playoffs roll around and it won’t be so hard to play with any injuries that crop up.

Further, Embiid has made $215 million to play just 54% of the regular-season games in his first 10 seasons.

He’s making more than $600,000 per game. If he misses, say, the first 10 games, that’s more than $6 million — to get into playing shape. Oh yes, the team is 1-3 and just got drilled by the formerly winless Pistons, at home.

This isn’t about criticizing a player with a chronic injury. This is a player with a chronic injury who chose himself over his team.

He admitted it Friday:

“When you got a chance to compete for a gold medal for the U.S. and representing your country, you can’t pass that up. I don’t care what anybody says. That’s just something you can’t pass up. ... Honestly, I did nothing. I basically was being there. I had my little moment.”

Embiid had two months after the Olympics to get ready, and he was not. What’s more, Embiid electively chose to play in the Olympics, so he could’ve had four months to get ready. He chose to not be ready. It’s just that simple. If you are fine with that, then good for you, because you won’t feel the frustration that, I think it’s safe to say, most fans of the Sixers feel at this moment. No matter how much you minimize the effect of playing in the Olympics (he says it didn’t affect him) it’s absurd to believe it had no effect whatsoever. Team USA would’ve won the gold medal without Embiid. Embiid played in the Olympics with Team USA — not with France, whose citizenship he also carries — because he wanted to have a gold medal on his résumé. It did not help the Sixers. It did not help Team USA. It helped Joel Embiid.

And he admitted it.

As far as load management is concerned, there is no reason Embiid could not have both been ready for the start of the regular season and be healthy for the playoffs. None.

In the biggest picture, it might not matter that Embiid is unavailable for — what? One-third of the team’s games? It may not matter because the biggest picture includes scenarios in which he is healthier for the playoffs. But again, there is no reason he can’t play in October and November and still be fit enough and healthy enough to play in May and June.

The reality is this: he doesn’t think he needs to play, he doesn’t want to play right now, and therefore will not play. This is the Sixers’ reality for the next five seasons, at the price of $300 million, because they just gave him a three-year, $193 million extension.

To be clear: That is money that you, the fans, are paying, because you pay for the tickets and the parking and the beer, and because you watch the broadcasts that make the networks willing to spend billions on TV rights.

Good for him for finally facing the music Friday.

Shame on him for not taking fuller responsibility for his actions, and his inaction.