Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and the NBA are doing the best they can. In the age of COVID, stuff happens. | David Murphy
The NBA yanked Sixers stars Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons from the All-Star Game after their barber tested positive for COVID-19. It was a situation ripe for a blame game that need not be played.
On Sunday afternoon, it was once again time to dust off the prior convictions and fire up the ol’ Wheel O’ Takes. The NBA had decided to hold an All-Star Game, and Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons had decided to get their hair cut for the occasion, and nobody thought to test the barber beforehand.
Here it was, the latest chance to flaunt your foresight.
If you’d previously thought the NBA was taking a needless risk by gathering all of its stars under one roof for three hours of shared sweat and heavy breath, you probably saw the incident as evidence of the league’s errant ways.
If you’d previously thought that Simmons and Embiid were two young, immature stars who cared more about their personal stardom than on-court success, you probably saw it as another line item on their list of misdeeds.
And if you’d spent the last year neglecting self-care as you slowly morphed into Jack Shephard in the Season 3 finale of Lost, you probably found some vindication for your lack of personal hygiene.
Irresponsibility! Vanity! Selfishness!
How about: whatever.
We live in an age where the hyper-monetization of content and the ease of producing it has led to a world in which nothing is excused and everything is a referendum. I’ve been guilty of it, too, so feel free to forward me some of my old headlines if you currently feel attacked. But instead of inventing a “there” where there is none, why don’t we all take a deep breath and fold our legs into the Lotus position and see if the following words make us feel better: An unfortunate thing happened. Unfortunate things sometimes do. With a little bit of good fortune, things will work out for the best.
And, breathe out.
Don’t mistake this for a minimization of the potential consequences of Sunday’s news. As someone who has had one such experience, and who considers himself to be in relatively good shape and in possession of a relatively even keel regarding my personal risk of a bad outcome, I will tell you that learning of a close contact makes for a disruptive few days. While I personally chose the wait-it-out method and was no worse for the wear, Embiid and Simmons have access to a much more intensive diagnostic regimen. That access is one of the primary reasons we’ve seen so few serious cases of COVID among the nation’s athletes despite the fact that thousands of them have been playing sports for eight months now.
In addition to being at the extreme end of the population in age and physical health, players like Embiid and Simmons are surrounded by a virtually unlimited quantity of the best health care and safety precautions that this country has to offer, and their current working environment is probably one of the safest around.
That being said, it would be silly to interpret Embiid’s and Simmons’ absence from the All-Star Game as a blessing in disguise. Could it turn out that way? I suppose. Both are critical to the Sixers’ title chances, and both missed a considerable chunk of the second half of last year’s season. If the current ordeal leads to them spending less time on their feet, then, sure, it obviously won’t hurt. You aren’t a bad person if this was the first thought that popped into your mind upon hearing Sunday’s news, mostly because it was an easy thought to have given the hullaballoo you witnessed two years ago after Embiid played in the All-Star Game despite battling a balky knee that ended up sidelining him once the regular season resumed. But I’m not sure the thought survives inspection.
Even in 2019, the impact of Embiid’s All-Star appearance was probably overblown. If the knee was bad enough for him not to play, it’s reasonable to assume that it was bad enough for one relatively low-stress game to not have made much of a difference. The same holds true for this year even before the considered downsides of exposure to a novel coronavirus. If either Embiid or Simmons ends up testing positive, they would only be allowed back on the court after going 10 days without symptoms or testing negative twice in a 24-hour period, per league rules. Beyond the potential health ramifications, a positive test by one of the two stars could dramatically impact the Sixers’ chances of hanging on to their No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. When Seth Curry tested positive, the Sixers guard ended up missing 16 days. If Embiid or Simmons tested positive today, a 16-day absence would see them miss six games, including the Sixers facing the Bucks for the first time this season.
A bout with COVID would be particularly detrimental for Embiid, who would have taken the court on Sunday night as the frontrunner for the NBA’s Most Valuable Player Award. The big man’s conditioning, agility, and reaction time all appear to be at all-time highs, and all have played a significant role in the career-best average of 30.2 points per game and career-best field goal percentage of .521. A six-game absence would leave Embiid playing a maximum of 60 games.
» READ MORE: Sixers’ heavy presence at NBA All-Star Game signifies growth team has made since last season
So, yes, this is not ideal. But nothing about this season has been. In sports and in society at large, the key to preserving our sanity is making the best of the circumstances that we’ve been given. For the NBA, that means doing whatever it can to play the All-Star Game, because the All-Star Game generates a lot of revenue, and revenue is a necessary thing when it comes to running a business, and paying employees, and fulfilling contractual obligations. Adam Silver has been increasingly unapologetic about this point, and the commish should be. At some point, all of us need to understand that the best thing we can do is give each other the benefit of the doubt that all of us are doing the best we can given our individual circumstances.
We’ve been dealing with this thing for close to a year now. Who am I to judge you for cutting your hair?