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At least Deion Sanders still got the chance to go to bed on time.
When the news came down that the Philadelphia 76ers’ Joel Embiid was going to miss yet another showdown with the Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokić on Saturday afternoon, with left knee soreness forcing Embiid out mere minutes before tip-off, it extended his streak of games missed in the Mile High City that began in 2019. It also brought back to memory that moment when Sanders, the University of Colorado football coach and NFL legend had challenged Embiid, the reigning NBA MVP, during their Colorado training camp dinner nearly three months before. Once again, we were all subjected to the exact sort of development that so many hoops fans had hoped would never happen again.
Yet again, Embiid’s health was getting in the way of the kind of greatness this league has rarely seen.
Along the way, the debate about this season’s MVP award grew even more interesting because the Sixers star is now just six missed games away from being disqualified for postseason awards by way of the league’s new player participation policy that requires at least 65 games played (the Sixers have 38 games left). For the Sixers’ purposes, it appears first-year coach Nick Nurse’s preseason plan to compel Embiid to take Jokić head on inside his 5,280-foot elevation home has failed — for now, at least — though the big men did square off last week on TNT for a game in Philadelphia. Embiid had his way in that matchup, finishing with 41 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds in the 126-121 win while Jokić had 25 points, 19 rebounds and three assists. The only saving grace in this latest would-be faceoff, considering how Sanders had framed this controversial conversation, was that the afternoon tip-off time meant there was no sleep lost for Sanders in the process.
“When we came up, MJ (Michael Jordan) wanted that smoke,” Sanders had said that night with the Sixers in Colorado, while reflecting on his NFL career as a transcendent star. “He wasn’t ducking whoever was that dude. He was going to get it. That’s the era I came up with. Now that main guy ain’t guarding the main guy. He don’t want it. He’s (worried he’s) gonna foul out. And I understand that. But it’s a little different.”
With Embiid sitting in the center of the table directly in front of Sanders, he continued.
“I’ve got Jerry (Rice),” he said. “Don’t worry about that. I’ve got this. I’ve got Mike (Irvin). So it’s a little different. It’s a little different today. There’s a lot of folks ducking that smoke right now. They want to be Tarzan on paper. Don’t sell me the game and (say) this is what I’m going to get, but when I turn on the TV, I don’t get that. I don’t like that. Give me that. If Embiid is playing the Joker, I want to see Embiid versus the Joker, all right? I want to see that. And he goes and gets it, right? I love it. I love the matchup, but I want to see it. That’s what I want to see. That’s why I stayed up. I want to see that. I didn’t stay up for nobody else to be on the Joker. I ain’t got time for that. I’ll turn to BET and watch the BET Awards.”
Unfortunately for Sanders, the BET Awards aren’t until June.
So, I’ll ask my colleagues Sam Vecenie and Mike Vorkunov: With Nuggets fans having poured salt in this wound by chanting “Where’s Embiid at?” during Denver’s 111-105 win Saturday, how do we see this situation? On the one hand, Embiid’s health status may turn out to be completely legit. After all, he missed three games in early January with this very ailment.
On the other hand — and this is the part the NBA will likely take issue with — he wasn’t listed on the Sixers’ injury report heading into the game, and the organization could be subject to league discipline as a result. At minimum, it’s fair to acknowledge this was like a heavyweight boxing match where one fighter doesn’t show up. There was a shock factor because of the timing of it all, with the news breaking mere minutes before tip-off began. And considering Embiid and Jokić are both on the short-list of MVP candidates this season, there are likely ramifications on that front as well.
Vecenie: The point about the league office here is important here, Sam. This kind of absence is the exact kind the NBA has been trying to get out of the game with the enforcement of its player participation policy this season. This was a nationally televised game. The league also has been quite clear that there needs to be a balance between road and home games missed with a stated preference toward missing more home games than road games. So far, nine of the 11 games Embiid has missed this season have been on the road.
If I were a Denver fan who had bought tickets to see this heavyweight showdown between the two best players in the league over the last three regular seasons, I would be exceptionally frustrated. It would be one thing if the 76ers had him on the injury report and had been clear there was a chance Embiid would miss the game. However, they even had a team official confirm to ESPN that Embiid would not be on the injury report about 24 hours ahead of the game. The league should fine the 76ers for this one.
Injuries happen. Players of Embiid’s size often wake up and feel like they don’t have the juice that day. I don’t, in any way, shape or form, mean to question whether Embiid wasn’t 100 percent right. Additionally, the 76ers have a lot to play for right now. They’re in the midst of a playoff race where things are incredibly tight at the top of the Eastern Conference beyond Boston. They’re two games behind the Milwaukee Bucks for the No. 2 seed, and only a game and a half ahead of Cleveland for the No. 5 seed. A potential drop to that level would result in the 76ers not having home-court advantage in even their first playoff series. On top of that, Denver and Philadelphia entered this game in a virtual tie in the standings with a .674 winning percentage. If those two teams were to make the NBA Finals, this game would have an outsized leverage in which teams would get home-court advantage for that series.
Having said all that, it’s also a bit difficult for me to believe Tyrese Maxey and Tobias Harris also missing this game wasn’t at least a slight factor in Embiid sitting. Going to play at elevation, without an All-Star point guard and a terrific wing, put the 76ers far behind the eight-ball in picking up a win even if Embiid did play. If he woke up feeling maybe 80 percent, and he had those guys going into the game, it’s much more winnable. Without them, it would have taken a Herculean game by Embiid. Instead, we got a Herculean performance by Paul Reed, who had 30 points and 13 rebounds, in trying to keep the 76ers in the game.
Before we get the MVP race of it all, it’s worth emphasizing again that this sucks for the fans. To basically have a no-show when there was no indication ahead of time is the kind of stuff I think plays a real role in disconnecting fans from the league. It’s why the player participation policy has been as effective and valuable as it’s been this season.
I don’t know that I totally agree with connecting awards to it, but I’m glad the league implemented the policy. Where do you guys stand on the idea of awards being tied it?
Vorkunov: Well, I guess let’s get to the MVP race of it all, because that might be what was impacted most by this.
This puts Embiid trending in the wrong direction in the MVP race for a few reasons. One is that the MVP award, like other awards, is as much a narrative award as a substantive one. I don’t have a vote, so I can’t speak to my own previous voting decisions, but it’s kind of clear how subjective this all is. Will voters penalize Embiid? I wouldn’t think so since they didn’t last year. He missed the game this weekend because there was something wrong physically, and that shouldn’t be used against him.
The bigger problem for Embiid is that it moves him closer to not even being eligible for the award anyway. He may end up missing too many games — i.e. more than 17. Embiid, however, did miss 12 of the 76ers’ first 46 games last season and still played in 66 games for the season, so this isn’t a foregone conclusion.
It is ironic that Embiid is in danger of losing eligibility because he’s having a better season this year than last and is MVP front-runner (on this fictitious ballot). I was in Philadelphia the other night when he scored 70 against the San Antonio Spurs, and that was an amazing feat; it will be this great lasting memory of his season.
Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokić battled last week in Philadelphia. (Bill Streicher / USA Today)
To your question of the new awards/games played policy, I don’t hate it. I’m not saying I love it — I’m generally pro-chaos — but I get it. The NBA negotiated for its corporate interests over its basketball interests. But it kind of formalized something that was likely to happen anyway. If Embiid were to play 63 games this season, would he win the MVP award? At some point, you miss too many games to make a winning case. Every marginal game missed in the MVP race just matters so much more and compounds. It’s a slippery slope, but the NBA decided to put the wall up themselves (I don’t think those two metaphors conflict). I think the bigger impact will be on All-NBA teams, where voters have historically given players more slack for missing a lot of games. My thinking is that, even if Embiid ends up playing like 65 or 66 games, his case might be harder to make because his competition might have ended playing more games than him than usual. It just becomes harder to vote for a truly dominant player who played much less than others.
I think the person whom I’d like to hear from is Amick. He has the MVP vote. Sam, how do you feel as a voter having the decision taken away from you on how to value players in the awards races if they miss a significant number of games?
Amick: Here’s the crazy part, Mike. I had spent the days heading into this game pondering this very question and listening to some of my media colleagues who protested this rule in the wake of Embiid’s recent 70-point outburst against San Antonio. The logic, which was admittedly making an impact in my thought process, was that he had been playing at such an incredible level that this allegedly-unjust rule was going to keep him from getting the recognition he so clearly deserved.
Like it or not, this latest game confirms why the league wanted to install this sort of system in the first place. On nights like Saturday, when the mainstream audience is excited to see the kind of matchup that makes the NBA marketing folks salivate, the presumed hope was that this policy might compel players like Embiid to make their decision about playing for the sake of the fans who pay their bills. Clearly, it’s not quite that simple.
But when you see something like this, with a player of Embiid’s caliber not playing when the stakes are this high and the circumstances are this suspect, it’s hard not to feel like the policy is right on point. If you can’t find a way to play 79.2 percent of your regular-season games, then it’s entirely fair to disqualify you from awards contention in the process.
Vecenie: I think that’s all reasonable, Sam, I’d just rather voters be left in charge of making that choice.
If the voters think the difference between Embiid playing 62 games and, for instance, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander playing 75 games is so vast that it’s worth voting for one over the other, I’m good with that decision-making process. For instance, Taylor Snarr’s EPM-based Estimated Wins Added model only has Embiid fourth in the league right now despite the fact that he’s currently posting the best EPM in the last decade. That’s one measure of the power of the games he’s missed.
Having said that, Embiid is on an unprecedented tear this season. He’s averaging 51 points per 100 possessions. That’s the best mark in NBA history, and it’s not all that close. The next-best mark is James Harden in 2018-19, when he averaged nearly three full points per 100 possessions fewer. Embiid is averaging over eight points per 100 possessions more than the 20th-best season in league history. That’s staggering. On top of it, I’d also have him on an All-Defense team right now with how he’s carrying the 76ers to a top-five mark on that end. Per PBPStats.com, the Sixers are giving up fewer than 112 points per 100 possessions when Embiid is out there. It would be hard for me to look past his dominance when he’s actually out on the court.
But I don’t have a vote and wouldn’t feel awesome about having one given that this policy and NBA awards are tied to player contracts. My real issue with the policy as a whole is that I think it promotes players trying to play when they aren’t 100 percent for financial gain. We just saw Tyrese Haliburton try to return from a hamstring injury this past week, only to play one game before now missing the next four after it didn’t respond well. Haliburton is more incentivized than any player in the league right now to get back, as an All-NBA appearance for him this season would trigger the supermax language in his contract, seeing him make an additional $41 million over the next five years.
I don’t know that Embiid would see things quite the same way given that he just won MVP, but he certainly would be motivated to see it that way. There are just significant flaws in the design of the process that I can’t get behind. And while your answer might be that disassociating awards from player contracts would be fixing the original sin here, the NBA went into this offseason knowing it had just agreed to continue that practice within the new collective bargaining agreement.
I’m just not convinced awards eligibility has any place in the player participation policy, even though I’d respect it if a voter just thought Jokić or Gilgeous-Alexander brought more value to their team this season.
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(Photo of Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokić: Isaiah J. Downing / USA Today)
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