Joel Embiid at the Olympics: A Complicated Viewing Experience

It's never boring with The Process, but never simple or easy, either.

I would always rather watch Joel Embiid play basketball than not watch Joel Embiid play basketball. In theory I acknowledge that he would be better off load-managing his way to a nice, balanced 58-game regular season, but in practice I'm never OK with him actually sitting when he could be taking the court, never not devastated to see that DNP next to his name. Doesn't matter if it's a Saturday night ABC showdown against Boston or a Wednesday preseason game against Charlotte - if Embiid can play, I will be there, and I will hope he is too. 

So even while part of me was definitely vexed by Joel's commitment to following up an injury-stricken end to the NBA regular season and playoffs with a full summer of Olympic basketball, in general it was good news to me: just more chances to watch the Big Man eat, which I'm incapable of saying no to. Plus, it would be a chance for him to just be One of the Guys for the first time in his pro career, an opportunity for him to (ostensibly, hopefully) get that taste of winning at the highest level, likely another signature accomplishment for his Hall of Fame career. What could possibly go wrong? 

The funny thing is that the two comically obvious answers to that question haven't even happened yet: Team USA hasn't lost a game -- though they certainly came about as close as they possibly could on Saturday night -- and Joel hasn't reaggravated any of his myriad career injuries or added any fun new maladies to the mix. But just about everything else that could go wrong for The Process has, and now it's Joel Embiid (and Sixers fans) vs. The World in far more ways than just the on-court tournament schedule. 

In truth, we probably should have seen this coming. After an even-earlier-than-usual exit to a postseason that was capped by the Celtics finally taking home the title -- love to be regularly reminded of that having happened -- Embiid was more primed for punching-bag status on this team than perhaps at any other point in his career, short of him leaving Air Canada Centre after Game 7 of the Raptors series and going straight to olympic competition. And of course, many social media randos were weirdly opinionated about Jo playing for Team USA in the first place, feeling it the more noble move for him to play for Cameroon or France, where he could've gotten honorably pasted throughout the tournament. Add to all that the fact that Jo regularly starts the season a little slow and sluggish, and clearly he was always going to be the most likely magnet for derision during this Team USA exhibition schedule. 

Still, the level of shit Embiid has taken from basketball fans over the course of the past couple weeks has really been something to see. Which isn't to say he's played great so far-- the first couple games especially, he was out of rhythm, sloppy with the ball, too physical on defense, just generally not that helpful. But now that folks have decided he's The Problem with Team USA, he's become the blame-eater for everything that goes wrong, even when it's obviously not really on him. Against South Sudan, he had 14 points on 5-6 shooting, with seven boards and three assists in 18 minutes, and was a +15 for the game. It was, by pretty much any objective measure, an excellent night at the office for the Big Man. And yet, search Twitter for Embiid's name after the game, and aside from our own people, it's all folks rolling their eyes at the two possessions where Jo threw the ball away, or posting laughing-crying emojis at the open layup he biffed to end the first half (which he still rebounded and scored easily), or citing the game coming down to the final possession as reason why he needs to be benched (despite him being on the court when the U.S. seized the lead and checking out with the team still up six). The scapegoating is getting dangerously close to Tobias levels. 

Jo hasn't always helped his own case there. As big as some of the on-court blunders he's made during this run have been, his biggest goof so far was likely off-court, via a New York Times interview (conducted before this exhibition run started). The interview was largely fine, but when posed a relatively softball question about the U.S.'s likelihood to dominate the tournament, Embiid eschewed the opportunity to cut a harmless Team USA promo and instead gave a curiously takey answer about the U.S. being overestimated because some of the dudes on his team were on the decline -- particularly LeBron, still the team's default leader. "You also got to understand most of those guys are older. The LeBron now is not the LeBron that was a couple of years ago," he offered. "I think people get fooled by the names on paper. But those names have been built throughout their career, and now they’re older. They’re not what they used to be." 

He wasn't entirely wrong, of course -- LeBron is 39 now, Steph Curry 36 and Kevin Durant 35, and all reduced from where they were at their absolute peak, though the first two have still been pretty spellbinding in this tournament. But for an Olympic first-timer who's always struggled a little to penetrate the NBA's cliquier inner circles, providing bulletin-board material for his own teammates -- the most accomplished and powerful guys on the team, no less, not to mention the guys most likely to be passing him the ball on the court -- is not the media strategy I would've gone with. It was a bizarrely unforced error on Embiid's part, and just gave the haters more reason to consider him a saboteur pulling an inside job on Team USA. 

Of course, this is all totally fucking up any chance I have of having a normal Olympic Men's Basketball viewing experience this summer, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Having being put on the defensive about Joel, sticking up for the Big Man has naturally become priority No. 1 for Sixers fans. We're watching these games like attorneys, prepping our pro-Embiid case for Twitter Court. I certainly have taken to actively rooting against the team when Joel is off the floor -- particularly against honor students Anthony Davis and Bam Adebayo, who have annoyingly mostly excelled throughout the tournament -- and I was actually kinda disappointed when South Sudan blew a last-second layup that could've given them the huge upset win, because the near-historic late-game meltdown (with AD on the court instead of Embiid) would've been great evidence in support of our client. Actually rooting for our home country simply can't compete with protecting The Agenda. 

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I'm not sure what the sum total of the impact of all of this is going to be for Embiid, or for us. Obviously the most important thing is still getting Embiid back to the Wells Fargo Center in one piece, without him making Paul George feel at home in Philly by greeting his arrival with the same kind of catastrophic, season-ending-before-it-even-begins injury PG suffered playing for Team USA a decade ago. And while I certainly hope it doesn't come on the back of a bunch of Bam three-pointers, winning the Gold would probably be a good Step Two for Joel -- especially as a starter, which coach Steve Kerr has guaranteed that Embiid will remain despite calls for his bench-shackling. If he keeps rounding into shape as he has been the last couple games, finding his rhythm, learning his role and developing his chemistry with LeBron and Steph -- who, despite me watching their play and body language as intently as if they were my own co-workers who I feared were mad at me, do not seem to be freezing Jo out -- maybe he can kinda silence the haters and actually come into next Sixers season feeling like a winner for once. 

And part of me does think it's a good thing for Embiid to be getting practice playing on a roster where he's not the unquestioned first option. For most of his first-quarter on Saturday, Joel didn't even attempt a shot, but he still played a valuable role on offense: screening, finding LeBron in the two-man game, getting on the O-boards, letting the offense flow through his post-ups. With the arrival of Paul George and the ascendance of Tyrese Maxey, it's going to be on Joel this season to both spread the wealth and protect himself by demanding less of the scoring load -- something he's talked a good game about doing thusfar in the press, but which it's still good to see him get actual on-court practice with. Easier to do when you're playing with 10 All-Stars instead of just two, of course, but the lessons could still translate to next season in a valuable way. 

There's certainly ways in which this can all end up a net positive experience for Joel Embiid. But I still worry about the long-term damage if he does continue to have a rough (or even just a not-entirely-smooth) go of it on the court, if he keeps making gaffes in the media, if he keeps giving critics reason to question his drive, his heart, his winneriness. Could he just end up further on the outs from basketball's insider cliques? Could he cement himself as an NBA heel in the not-so-fun way? Could he start questioning just what he's bothering to do all of this for, whether it's even really worth it? Is this just gonna be the Sixers Playoffs all over again for all of us? It's probably not ultimately that deep, and the most likely scenario is still that Jo's game sharpens up in time, Team USA steamrolls the world and we see him and LeBron sharing steaks and rapping along to "Not Like Us" at some Paris nightclub on IG afterwards. I'll be watching regardless, and I'll be happy to do so. I just may be watching through my fingers for parts of it.