Joel Embiid Joel Embiid
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Saturday night’s nationally televised game between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Denver Nuggets was supposed to feature a highly-anticipated and heavily promoted matchup between superstar MVP candidates Joel Embiid and Nikola Yokic. But for the fourth consecutive time, Embiid did not suit up in Denver.

Embiid was a late scratch on Saturday afternoon after his regular pregame warmup but was held out of the lineup at the last minute due to knee soreness. This marks the fourth consecutive time that Embiid has been held out of a game in Denver as the 76ers star has not played in the Mile High City since 2019.

The NBA adopted some new rules this season in an attempt to curb the issues with load management that have plagued the league in recent years and keep star players on the court as much as possible. The new rules specifically prohibit star players from sitting out nationally televised games and seek to limit players resting during road contests. Obviously, with Embiid held out due to medical reasons, these rules did not pertain to this situation, but they do highlight that this was not ideal for the NBA, the fans, networks, advertisers, or other stakeholders.

The matchup between Jokic and Embiid has been promoted heavily by ESPN, the NBA, and the teams for months. The 76ers even made a post Friday night hyping up the “MVP matchup” that was set to occur on Saturday.

And ESPN had been leaning into the superstar matchup in its advertising leading up to the game, as well, as NBA personality Rob Perez points out.

“Have seen many commercials across multiple Disney-affiliated networks the past 24 hours advertising the Jokic vs. Embiid rematch today. It’s part of ‘Rivals Week,’ which the NBA began promoting over the Summer. If the Sixers and Nuggets are ‘rivals,’ it’s because of the two MVP candidates competing against each other — not the franchises’ history,” Rob Perez said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “They stacked a triple-header on ABC for this. The plug gets pulled on Game #2 at the last second. Tickets, viewership, discourse, gambling partners/consumers, etc. will all be affected.”

“Nobody sane is going to blame a player for being injured and having to sit out, but think the league is past the point of needing to re-strategize how the product promotes regular season games around stars. Just so many damn letdowns. It feels like the batting percentage of their attendance running concurrently is at the mendoza line,” the post continued.

This is obviously amplified by the fact that Embiid had already been taking heat for his streak of absences in Denver even before he was ruled out of Saturday’s game.

“Joel Embiid, my brother … You haven’t played in Denver since 2019!” ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins said to Embiid during NBA Today on Friday. “Your big [behind] better suit up tomorrow. You better suit up, and you better stand on business and give Jokic his lick back.”

So when Embiid didn’t suit up Saturday night, he took a lot of heat for it.

 

Obviously, there’s only so much that can be done if a player is injured and can’t play. But when the promotion of a game hinges so heavily on the matchup of two players, it puts everyone in a bit of a tight spot when one of those players is unable to play.

[ESPN]

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