Joel Embiid and 76ers brass don’t seem to be on the same page.
In the wake of the team’s ugly second-round sweep at the hands of the Knicks, which finished Sunday with a 144-114 drubbing in front of a pro-Knicks crowd in Philadelphia, The Athletic reports that the oft-injured Embiid “didn’t see eye-to-eye with the front office and the coaching staff” as the season went along.
Despite a public plea to avoid “ducking the [luxury] tax” in the days leading up to the trade deadline, the Daryl Morey-led front office did just that by trading promising second-year guard Jared McCain to the Thunder for a 2026 first-round pick — which will be toward the end of the round — a 2027 second-rounder and two 2028 second-rounders.
Embiid, 32, and other players “were not happy” about the trade, according to The Athletic.
While it saved a few million bucks and got Philly below the tax, it was an odd decision considering McCain is 22 and showed some promise after being taken No. 16 overall in 2024, though rookie VJ Edgecombe flashing All-Star potential may have made McCain expendable.
McCain is now contributing off the bench for a loaded Thunder team that is looking to repeat as champs. He had 18 points on 7-for-11 shooting in a Game 2 win over the Lakers.
Embiid is very likely to stick around given his long injury history and the three years, roughly $193 million left on his contract.
However, 76ers ownership hasn’t yet decided the fates of Morey and head coach Nick Nurse, per The Athletic.
There were “tensions” between some players and members of the coaching staff during the season, per the report.
On the same day Embiid posted on X that the 76ers “won’t let me play basketball” on April 1 even though he wanted to play through an illness, a group of players expressed concern to some coaches “over certain players’ participation in team activities and frustration over the direction of the 76ers’ season,” according to The Athletic.
There was belief from some players that “there wasn’t enough control of the locker room.”
Embiid, the former MVP coming off of knee surgery, averaged 26.9 points and a career-low 7.7 rebounds in 38 regular-season games.
He missed the end of the season with appendicitis and missed the first three games of the first-round series against the Celtics, in which the 76ers came back to win from a 3-1 deficit.
Embiid then missed Game 2 of the Knicks series with hip and ankle issues.
He averaged 24 points, 7.3 rebounds and 5.4 assists in seven postseason games.
