By David Aldridge, Tony Jones and Sam Amick
Philadelphia 76ers star center Joel Embiid shoved a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist in the Sixers locker room Saturday night, multiple league sources confirmed to The Athletic. The physical altercation occurred after Embiid and the columnist, Marcus Hayes, argued following Philadelphia’s 124-107 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Hayes, a longtime columnist for the Inquirer, and previously, the Philadelphia Daily News, recently wrote a column that Embiid considered personally disparaging to him and his family, which Embiid expressed to reporters after Friday’s practice.
In part, Embiid said he had done “way too much for this f—–g city to be treated like this.” The column in question, written Oct. 23, brought up Embiid’s son and his brother, Arthur, who died in a car crash at age 13 in 2014, a tragedy that Embiid has said on multiple occasions almost caused him to stop playing basketball. Embiid’s 4-year-old son is named Arthur, after his brother.
Embiid has yet to play in a game this season, one that has begun with a 1-4 start without Embiid and star forward Paul George, including Saturday’s loss.
Hayes went to the game Saturday and entered the team’s locker room after the game ended. Embiid sought him out, and their conversation soon deteriorated.
Hayes did not respond physically to Embiid’s shove, a team source said.
An NBA spokesman said Saturday, “We are aware of reports of an incident in the Sixers locker room this evening and are commencing an investigation.”
Embiid’s playing status this season has been a consistent source of conversation and frustration for the team and the seven-time All-Star, who has been injured every postseason for the past several years, a contributing factor to the franchise failing to get out of the second round of the playoffs during his tenure. Embiid and the 76ers have worked on a potential plan for the center to be able to play in the regular season but play fewer games to try to keep him healthy for the postseason.
Embiid had surgery on his left knee last February, which kept him out for much of the second half of the 2023-24 regular season. He returned for a first-round playoff series against the New York Knicks and was noticeably hobbled throughout the series. The Knicks won it in six games.
But Embiid played in the Paris Olympics for Team USA this summer, serving as its starting center, and appeared to be healthy. In 76ers training camp, though, minor swelling was discovered in his knee, and Embiid has been shelved since.
Hayes has written multiple columns in the last week-plus that have been harshly critical of Embiid, chiding him for his poor conditioning coming into the season after playing in the Olympics, and knocking Embiid for his numerous absences over the years.
“The degree of contempt Embiid has for his organization, for his industry, and, especially, for the fans who pay him all of his money is utterly flabbergasting,” Hayes wrote in an Oct. 23 column in the Inquirer. “Because fans buy the tickets, and fans watch TV, and fans buy the products on TV that are advertised. Embiid’s part of the bargain is to show up and play basketball. But he doesn’t even bother to be in good enough shape to hold up this part of the bargain.
It is incredible dereliction of duty. It is entirely unacceptable.”
In initial versions of the column, Hayes wrote this:
“Joel Embiid consistently points to the birth of his son, Arthur, as the major inflection point in his basketball career. He often says that he wants to be great to leave a legacy for the boy named after his little brother, who tragically died in an automobile accident when Embiid was in his first year as a 76er.”
That paragraph was taken out of later versions of the column that ran online.
This past Wednesday, after the NBA fined the 76ers $100,000 for what it called “inconsistent” statements from the team regarding Embiid’s health status, Hayes criticized Embiid again. Hayes suggested the team offer refunds to fans who bought tickets in good faith for home games this season, only to learn that Embiid would likely miss several games during the year to avoid playing in back to backs.
“Furthermore, it’s highly unlikely that Embiid will play in all of the ensuing home games, even if they’re not back-to-backs; after all, he’s missed 46 percent of regular-season games since the Sixers drafted him in 2014,” Hayes wrote. “So it’s fair to assume that he’ll miss 10 home games, none of them due to injury. That’s about 25 percent of what every full season-ticket holder paid for.”
On Friday, Hayes again criticized Embiid after Embiid clapped back against the criticism, saying he’d “done way too much for this f—–g city to be treated like this, so I’ve done way too f—— much.”
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In his Friday column, Hayes acknowledged Embiid’s MVP award, as well as his having carried the franchise, and said Embiid “might wind up being 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.”
Embiid, 30, is in his 10th season with the Sixers, who drafted him with the No. 3 pick in 2014. He missed his first two NBA seasons due to a right foot injury, surgery and re-injuring his foot. But he began to assert himself in his third pro season and hasn’t looked back since, becoming the face of the controversial rebuilding plan the Sixers undertook that became known as “The Process.”
In eight seasons, Embiid has averaged 27.9 points, 11.2 rebounds and 3.6 assists in 433 regular-season games. But he’s been plagued by lower-body injuries throughout his career, many of which occurred either late in regular seasons or in playoff series.
After the Sixers made public comments about their plan to keep Embiid out of back-to-back games this season and then held him out for a nationally televised game against Milwaukee on Oct. 23, the NBA launched an investigation that ultimately confirmed the concern about his left knee.
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If the league had discovered that Embiid was, in fact, healthy and that the Sixers had decided to prioritize the playoffs while routinely resting him during the regular season, then the league’s hammer would have certainly fallen hard. But league sources told The Athletic that Embiid’s left knee, in the eyes of the NBA and the Sixers, was unstable enough that there was concern about further damage being done if he had played in these opening games to the regular season.
The league still fined the 76ers $100,000, but it was due to the public statements.
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(Photo: Justin Casterline / Getty Images)