Joel Embiid was suspended by the NBA for three games for his tense altercation with Marcus Hayes, a journalist from Philadelphia, inside the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday. The 2023 NBA MVP gave Hayes a shove after he brought up Embiid’s deceased brother and four-year-old son in a scathing piece for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The league’s executive vice president of basketball operations, Joe Dumars, made the announcement of Embiid’s ban on Tuesday. One person who voiced his disapproval of the “unfair” decision was Gilbert Arenas, who used his podcast, “Gil’s Arena,” to discuss his worries.
This is what the three-time All-Star said: “There’s going to be three games where I’m healthy and I’m getting my check back,”
Gilbert Arenas talks about Joel Embiid’s suspension
Agent Zero believed that Embiid was being treated unfairly by the league’s decision to deny him money. According to Bobby Marks of ESPN, the Cameroonian-American center can lose up to $1,063,778. Arenas clarified: “Owners, listen. You have to understand, there’s two entities – there’s your team and then there’s the NBA. You have to always beat the NBA to the punch because they don’t have your best interests,”
The Sixers front office’s failure to safeguard their franchise talent was Gil’s main grievance with the circumstance. He claimed that by resolving the issue internally, the team might have avoided the NBA’s penalty.
Recommended Arenas: “Once I [ownership] penalize him, you [NBA] can’t come in now. You can’t do nothing. I’m going to give him two-three games, right, ‘Hey, hey, we’ll figure that sh*t out anyway but I just said it for the press.’ I’m not fining you. I’m not going to piss off my own player,”
Attendee Kenyon Martin also criticized the 76ers for failing to take proactive measures to address the matter. At a post-practice press conference the day before the altercation, Embiid had expressed his displeasure with Hayes. Martin said the front desk ought to have noticed and denied the columnist entry to the arena the next day.
