It wasn’t exactly a secret the 76ers were having a team meeting Monday night after dropping to 2-11 — they didn’t open the locker room for about an hour after the game and didn’t speak to the media until then.
However, what has Joel Embiid and Paul George fired up is that some of the details of that meeting leaked out. One of those details was how Tyrese Maxey told Embiid the former MVP needed to set a better example by showing up on time to team meetings and events, the tidbit that became the headline out of the meeting. Embiid took responsibility for needing to set the tone, but was pissed off he became the story.
Joel Embiid when asked about the details that emerged from Monday’s team meeting: “Whoever leaked that is a real piece of shit. But even then, we talked about a lot of things. I don’t want to get into the details, but that whole thing probably took 30 seconds.”
— Gina Mizell (@ginamizell.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T05:22:49.066Z
It wasn’t just Embiid who was pissed, on “Podcast P with Paul George,” the 76ers wing echoed Embiid’s sentiments.
“The conversation should have never just been leaked, period. It wasn’t even like it was a meeting that went that direction of the blame game or people confrontational to that extent. You know what I mean? So that it should have never gotten out, period. Whether you want to think it’s for motivational purposes to the media or not, it wasn’t that type of conversation for it to get leaked. I can see if there was two dudes challenging each other and loud arguing back and forth and it got overheard and then now something got leaked out but it wasn’t that type of energy in there. So I don’t know why or how that got leaked.”
Details of these closed-door meetings always end up in the media, and usually the same way: After it ends, players call their agents to talk (or vent) about it, and then it’s the agents who spin things to the media to put their player in the best light. Occasionally, a player or coach will leak things for strategic purposes, but one way or another, the contents of the meeting tend to get out.
The idea of Maxey calling out Embiid did get blown out of proportion — welcome to social media — but it also fit a pattern of what we heard from behind those closed doors. Embiid reportedly said at one point he didn’t
fully understand what the team was trying to do on offense, while other players told Nick Nurse they wanted to be coached harder. It sounded like a mix of frustration and organizational dysfunction. There are a lot of new players, a top-heavy roster with three stars that have played just six minutes together total this season (and will not add to that total for at least a couple more games with George suffering another bone bruise), role players who have not stepped up, and it has led to the worst offense in the league so far.
Start winning, and there won’t be a need for more of these team meetings or stressing about leaks out of them.