Joel Embiid needs to find himself, fast, if the Sixers are to turn it around

Joel Embiid always says that his life is like a movie. Hopefully, we’re at the point of the film where the star athlete emerges as a new man after clearing his head on a long, thoughtful motorcycle ride along the coastline with a brooding ‘80s song playing in the background. No epic is complete without a look-in-the-mirror moment. Perhaps we have arrived at Embiid’s.

The Sixers’ current situation is so inexplicable that it almost explains itself. A 2-11 record is well past the point of wondering what is wrong. There is no mystery. Teams don’t lose 11 of 13 because of a subpar supporting cast or a lack of effort. They do it because their best player isn’t good enough. Most cases, their best player is actively hurting the team.

Such is the case with the Sixers, and they seem to know it. In the wake of their embarrassing come-from-ahead blowout loss to the Heat on Monday, the team held a lengthy locker room meeting that delayed coach Nick Nurse’s postgame press conference by nearly an hour. That’s not an abnormal occurrence. In fact, with a normal team, in normal circumstances, it might give rise to the hope that a rally is brewing. But there is nothing normal about the Sixers.

The thing about closed-door meetings is that they are most effective when the doors are, in fact, closed. In the Sixers’ case, the details of the meetings were almost immediately leaked to ESPN, which published a report on Tuesday morning detailing Tyrese Maxey’s calling out of Embiid for failing to lead by example. Now, anybody who has spent time around Maxey and watched his interactions with Embiid knows that there is a very good chance that Maxey’s actual words were delivered constructively, in good faith and with a spirit of love. Meanwhile, anybody who is shrewd enough to leak something anonymously to a national media outlet most likely knows there is a very good chance the headline won’t be, “Maxey gives Joel Embiid a brotherly shove.” Which very likely means that somebody is attempting to advance an agenda beyond winning more than two in 13 basketball games.

What is the agenda? Who has the incentive? We could spend 1,000 words deducing all of the possible scenarios. But it doesn’t really matter. The questions are irrelevant. That they can even be asked is the poison that has been laid. The most closely guarded secrets in professional sports are the things said behind closed doors. Even innocuous conversations in carefree times are treated by their participants as if covered by an airtight NDA.

» READ MORE: Tyrese Maxey reportedly called out Joel Embiid during Sixers’ lengthy postgame team meeting

There is a reason for all of this. Self-sacrifice is the tie that binds families together. Words matter more when they come from someone who wants what’s best for you as badly as they want what’s best for themselves. Distrust is like moisture: It only needs a small crack. If nobody knows who did it, then everybody could have done it. The danger now: What should be a productive moment could instead be another hurdle the Sixers must overcome.

The message itself, as reported, was a necessary one. Embiid needs to understand the downstream effects of everything that he does. It is a natural step in the maturation process. The earlier you take it, the better. Playing in the Olympics may have been what was best for Embiid. His desire to play for Team USA may have been well-intentioned. But playing on Team USA may not have been what’s best for everybody else who is reliant upon Embiid. And here we are.

Embiid has always been a paradoxical player, so singular in both talent and style that it is difficult to build a team that can win without him. This year, the Embiid Paradox has taken on a different form. The Sixers still aren’t any good without him. But they are somehow worse with him. They’ve lost all three games he has played, all of them by double digits. In all of them, Embiid has finished with a negative plus-minus. Most damning: In each of those games, the Sixers had a better point differential with Embiid off the court.

None of that will come as a surprise to anybody who has willed themselves into watching all three games. He is a shell, not only of his MVP self but of the worst version of himself we’d seen before. Tentative to the point of avoidant, clumsy to the point of uncoordinated, timid to the point of afraid. He is Mike Tyson circa 2024, with 28 fewer years of age to excuse it. He is an uncomfortable thing to watch.

The numbers offer a stark quantification of what your eyes have seen. In 90 minutes over three games, Embiid has scored 44 points on 37 field goal attempts with 19 rebounds and three blocked shots. In previous seasons, that line would be closer to his per-game average than per three. In fact, Embiid has scored 44-plus points in a game 18 times in his career, grabbed 19-plus rebounds 17 times, and attempted 37-plus shots once. According to Basketball-Reference.com’s Game Score metric, Embiid’s current three-game stretch is tied for the lowest of his career.

A dysfunctional Embiid spoils the entire bushel of apples. It throws everything off. The star of the show needs to find himself. The Sixers are in trouble if they aren’t at rock bottom.