Max Kellerman just dropped an unflattering report on Joel Embiid, and it is the kind of thing that will make Philadelphia fans wince before the season even begins.
Writing for The Ringer, Kellerman detailed a picture of an Embiid who is not fully engaged with his own rehab, is losing the locker room, and has team officials privately questioning whether he wants to be a 76er anymore.
That is a brutal combination of accusations to level at the face of a franchise. Even if only half of it is true, Daryl Morey has a very expensive problem on his hands.
Embiid is coming off another injury-shortened season and is entering year three of a contract that pays him north of $50 million a year. The Sixers are all-in on him for the foreseeable future whether they like it or not.
The Paul George experiment has not worked. Tyrese Maxey is the only untouchable, and even he has hit his ceiling on a roster this top-heavy. Without a fully bought-in Embiid, this team is a first-round exit at best.
Kellerman does not just throw things at the wall. He has been around the league long enough that if he is publishing this, he has multiple sources telling him something is off. Philadelphia fans should take that seriously.
The 76ers organization is going to release the standard denial. That is fine. But the damage is done because now every camera in Philly will be trained on Embiid’s body language when training camp opens.
If Embiid comes out and dominates preseason, this story dies. If he shows up looking uninterested or checked out, this becomes the biggest ongoing storyline of the NBA regular season.
There is no in-between here. The Sixers built the entire franchise around Embiid and gave him unprecedented power. If he is checking out, the franchise is in more trouble than anyone realized.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
