The NBA is investigating whether or not star Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid allegedly shoved Marcus Hayes, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, in the locker room after a game on Nov. 2. Embiid reportedly took offense to his son and dead brother being used against him in a column Hayes wrote.
According to Yahoo Sports, Keith Pompney from the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Embiid had assaulted a reporter in the locker room. Following some initial confusion about whether or not Embiid had punched the reporter, it was confirmed by ESPN Insider Shams Charania that it was a shove and not a punch.
Kyle Neubeck, who later wrote his own column about Embiid’s humanity coming through in his reaction to the reporter Embiid shoved, said on PHLY‘s post-game show that the reporter in question was the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Marcus Hayes.
“The second that Joel realized he (Hayes) was there, got into a verbal back-and-forth. Obviously, we can’t repeat many of the words that were said on this show. The basic gist of it was basically, ‘You can say I suck, you can say whatever you want about me as a player. Don’t ever put my dead brother’s name in your mouth. Don’t talk about my family. Don’t bring them into this. You want to talk to me like a man and talk to me about basketball, that’s different, but if you ever talk about my family again, we’re gonna have real problems,” Neubeck said.
Hayes’ column was in part, a response to the 76ers being fined $100,000 for misleading public statements about Embiid’s health after they claimed he was nursing a left knee injury.
The opening, or lede, of Hayes’ column reads fairly harshly and many people expressed solidarity with Embiid on social media.
“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,” Hayes began his column.
Hayes continued, “Well, in order to be great at your job, you first have to show up for work. Embiid has been great at just the opposite. Now in his 11th season, he consistently has been in poor condition. This poor conditioning apparently seems to have delayed his debut this season.”
Hayes would later have that first paragraph removed, admitting that he understood why people objected to it in a post to his Twitter account.
Embiid clearly did not accept Hayes’ apology, who kept publishing columns critical of Embiid following the one in which he mentioned Embiid’s son, who is named for Embiid’s brother, Arthur, who died in a car accident in Cameroon in 2014.
In his comments to reporters on Nov. 1, Embiid recounted several times he has played while injured or through injury and pushed back on Hayes specifically.
“If your body doesn’t react well and if your body tells you one thing — I’ve done it. From what I can tell you, I’ve broken my face twice, I came back early with the risk of losing my vision, had broken fingers, I still came back. So I’m not going to sit here and be like — I see people saying, ‘He doesn’t want to play.’ I’ve done way too much for this city putting myself at risk for people to be saying that. I do think it’s bulls***,” Embiid said.
Embiid continued, “Like that dude, he’s not here, Marcus, whatever his name is, I’ve done way too much for this f***ing city to be treated like this. Done way too f***ing much. I wish I was as lucky as other ones, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not trying and doing whatever it takes to be out there, which I’m gonna be pretty soon.”
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