Joel Embiid Rumors

Who else are you tight with in the league? Tyrese Haliburton: A few different guys. I mean, that Olympic team made me cool with, like, everybody. That’s been the cool part about it. Not many people are cool with Joel Embiid. I happen to be pretty cool with him. He actually FaceTimed me the other day, and I’m like, "You don’t call anybody." So he’s genuinely checking on me. That’s the cool part about the lives we get to live—you get to grow close with the people you grew up watching.

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Why are people not cool with Embiid? Tyrese Haliburton: ’Cause he’s outside. He goes out. He’s a cool-ass dude. I think he’s just wary of people. Like, he keeps you at arm's distance, you know? He doesn’t let a ton of people in. Jake Paul: Long-ass arm. Tyrese Haliburton: Yeah. He keeps everybody kind of at a distance. But we work out with the same trainer in L.A., so usually he kicks everybody out of the gym when he works out— He lets me stay. So I know I’m in his good graces when I’m there.

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Tyrese Maxey: The biggest thing I learned is—I know (James Harden), and I know people aren’t going to say he sacrificed, but he sacrificed. He gave up some of himself for the team, for the betterment of the team. He was able to get Joel a lot of easy shots. He got me a lot of easy shots. But it was all about trust. From day one when he came in, the first thing he said to me was, “Listen, don’t think you’re not going to get the ball. Don’t think you’re not about to still be aggressive and keep building your game.” His first instinct was always, whether we scored or didn’t, he was going to pitch it ahead to me—let me score in transition, play that one-on-one game, shoot—whatever the case may be. Then I’d get it back, and it would just flow from there.

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Now, Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer, a prominent source for the 76ers, claims that Joel Embiid might know that his time with the 76ers may be nearing its end. In his recent interview with Sirius XM, Pompey made a daunting revelation about the former MVP. "I think Joel may know that the end is near, and this is just me saying, and is kind of like explaining to the people what he's been going through. Because rarely do you have a guy tell you how much pain and how much they're going through." "The thing I took from it was, no matter who is there, the culture is the same. And I feel like Joel Embiid knows that, it may not be this season, but the end is near. And maybe he feels as though he can't play at the level that he used to."

Yahoo! Sports

Q. Who is your toughest defensive matchup in the league right now? Isaiah Hartenstein: It depends. Nikola Jokic is just hard to guard because he's so good at passing, but probably just like just straight one-on-one, I think when Joel was healthy, I think Joel Embiid, just straight one-on-one. It's hard because you can't really be physical with him because he's good at drawing fouls, so strong and can just do it from all angles. So, it's probably between Joel and Jokic, but just like they're kind of different in those aspects. Joel is kind of more into straight ones and Jokic is like you can't really play team defense on him, because he can pass so well. So, I think it's two different guys, but at the end of the day, those are probably the two hardest I would probably had to guard.

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It's a principled stance, but it's also a desire to have something his talent and status will not allow him: innocence. When Embiid plays his latest sports video game obsession, "MLB The Show," he trades and trades until his team is invulnerable, only then does he play, securing in make believe what he cannot in life -- a guarantee against his doubts, his silence, his bad luck, his frailty, his complicity. "No one knows this, but even James [Harden] is not talking to me," Embiid tells me. "That's the part I don't like about being 'that guy,' because it puts you in the middle of those situations. Because if you ask James, he probably believes I had something to do with him not being here. And I'm just like, 'I won the scoring title. You won the assists title. We had a pick-and-roll that was unstoppable.'" "It hurts when you feel like you haven't done anything wrong," he continues. "When you think you have a relationship like that with somebody ... you lose a lot."

ESPN

When the columnist showed up in the locker room the next day, the two men came face to face. "The next time you bring up my dead brother and my son again, you are going to see what I'm going to do to you," Embiid said. The altercation ended when Embiid shoved the columnist and Sixers staff stepped in between them. The NBA suspended Embiid three games without pay. Months later, the column still gnaws at him. "I don't care if the NBA wants to fine me $1 million, $2 million, $5 million, $10 million, I would still do it," Joel Embiid says. "If he walked up to me just like he did, I would push him away again."

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Embiid hasn't stopped blaming himself for leaving his brother in Cameroon to play basketball in 2011. Francois Nyam, one of his agents in 2014, called Embiid the night Arthur died. He says the first thing Embiid managed to say after sobbing was, "That's my fault. I'm a piece of s---." Embiid's family had planned to be together on draft night in 2014, but after Embiid's first foot surgery, doctors told him not to fly. He remained in Los Angeles at his agent's home while Arthur stayed with family friends on the East Coast before returning to Cameroon. The accident happened nearly four months later. The brothers hadn't seen each other in three years. "It's never going to change," Embiid says, all but whispering. "I still feel it."

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WEEKS AFTER the locker room altercation in November, the Sixers held a closed-door meeting to address the team's calamitous 2-11 start. Details of the meeting leaked the following day. Maxey, whom Embiid considers one of his best friends, confronted Embiid about being late for team events and dragging the morale of the group down. Embiid told a reporter, "Whoever leaked that is a real piece of s---." He reportedly vowed to find the source. "I know who leaked it," Embiid tells me during a late-night phone call after the season ends. "You do?" "Yeah, but I'm not going to -- the past is the past," Embiid says. "The one thing I'll say is, it's hard being around people that do those sorts of stuff. "That goes back to the trust thing. Once you cross that -- you can't expect me to be part of a team meeting again. That's just not going to happen."

ESPN

Former French national team head coach Vincent Collet admitted he was pleased that NBA superstar Joel Embiid chose to represent Team USA instead of joining France for the 2024 Paris Olympics. "I was happy Embiid didn't come last year," Collet told BasketNews at the B8 Summit in Vilnius last week. "I think we don't need that," he added, referring to the naturalization of players on national teams.

BasketNews

In a follow-up conversation with BasketNews, Collet expanded on his stance. He revealed that he was powerless to oppose France's pursuit of naturalizing Embiid, especially with the decision coming from high-ranking officials. "I couldn't really do that because it was coming from even higher—like the Minister," Collet explained. "It was something big. The Olympic Games were in France, and they thought it was, for us, insurance to be better. But for me, it wasn't that clear," he said.

BasketNews

In a follow-up conversation with BasketNews, Collet expanded on his stance. He revealed that he was powerless to oppose France's pursuit of naturalizing Embiid, especially with the decision coming from high-ranking officials. "I couldn't really do that because it was coming from even higher—like the Minister," Collet explained. "It was something big. The Olympic Games were in France, and they thought it was, for us, insurance to be better. But for me, it wasn't that clear," he said.

BasketNews

Kendrick Perkins: The Philadelphia 76ers are nowhere in hell. I believe Joel Embiid is going to come back on a revenge tour. I believe so. This is going to be a revenge season for Joel Embiid. I believe he's going to come back on a mission. Well, he should. He should because him and Paul George are probably, in my opinion, not probably, they are. When it comes to pressure, they're the top two for as most pressure in the NBA to get something done. Nobody wants to hear nothing else. You got to get it done. You got to get that sh*t done. Period. No other way around it. Conference Finals minimum with that big three with Tyrese Maxey, Paul George, and Joel Embiid.

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The NBA just wrapped its accounting on the 2024-25 season and pegged basketball-related income (BRI) at $10.25 billion, according to someone familiar with the accounting who was granted anonymity because the details are private. It’s a key number for players, as it determines how much of their salary they get to keep from last season. The news is not great for players, as they will forgo more than $480 million from the escrow fund set aside to make the math work in the shared-revenue system laid out in the collective bargaining agreement between players and the league.

Sportico